One of the friendly sharks at the south pass of Fakarava.

French Polynesia

July 10, 2017 by Morgan Henry

Pape'ete, Tahiti
July 9, 2017

(Apologies for the extreme lag in updating this site, Internet access is pretty low speed out here. We have been updating our journal on a page we set up here: nowheretumbleweed@blogspot.com where we can update via satellite email. Please follow along at the other site. When we have Internet access we'll update this page as well.)

Three months after leaving La Paz we are happily docked at the city marina in Pape'ete, Tahiti. It feels like a chapter marker in our voyage, halfway between Mexico and New Zealand. The past three months have been full of adventure, crossing the Pacific to the Marquesas, sailing from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus, exploring several of the atolls in the Tuamotus. Swimming with sharks,watching eagle rays dance like dervishes in slow motion, anchoring in places that were remote and stunning in their beauty. Overnight passages with the night sky twinkling overhead, passing small atolls fragrant with vanilla, bicycling narrow lanes in the shade of coconut plantations. Time has moved quickly, compressing the past few months into a whirl of light, moving water, saturated color. The slow pace and lightly populated areas that we have been visiting have led a crash landing of sorts here in Pape'ete. High speed ferries, a highway, sidewalks of people, cars in a hurry, grocery stores stocked with overwhelming selections. It feels weird, but good, to be here.

We left the south pass of Fakarava two weeks ago for a two night passage to Tahiti. We had decent sailing for the first couple of days, deep in the second night the winds left us and we were forced to motor the rest of the way. Pape'ete is pretty straightforward and we found a slip on the outside with a nice view down the harbor to Mo'orea, an island about ten miles away. The city marina is well run, clean and quiet out where we are. There is a little swell from the commercial traffic but we like the views and being a bit away from town. If the winds kick up from the north then this would not be a good spot. It's worth noting that from the out of date cruiser's info we had we expected to stern tie to the sea wall and to have the city's traffic roaring past our stern. The days of stern lines to an iron ring are in the past, now there is a modern marina with large slips and a generous fairway. We are on a pontoon annex away from the traffic facing the park.

The park is along the waterfront, complete with coconut trees and planted with a lush variety of local species. At mid day it is shaded and cool, making a nice respite from the concrete of the city, also makes for a covered walkway to the grocery store,15 minutes from where we are.

The plan was to stay in Pape'ete for a few days to provision, take care of a couple boat projects and sort out the next couple of legs of our trip. We need to be out of French Polynesia by July 16, when our visa expires and are planning on heading to the Cook Islands, most likely for Rarotonga, but might like to stop at another island or two in the Cooks along the way. Once we leave Tahiti we'll have a few days remaining on our visa and will check out of Bora Bora.

One of the odd realities of sailing across the Pacific is that although the pace of movement feels leisurely, or at least looks leisurely on paper, there is always a clock running in the back ground. We started in French Polynesia with a three month visa, which seemed like so much time when we dropped anchor at Nuku Hiva. Now there are a couple weeks left and it feels like we’ll be rushing to provision and try to see another island before making the jump to the Cook Islands.

Over the next few months we plan to sail through the Cook islands, visit Niue, and then on to Tonga. By October we will be getting ready to head south for New Zealand where we plan to spend their summer avoiding the hurricane season to the north. We enjoyed our time in New Zealand almost 15 years ago, it will be nice to visit with a sailboat.

We are learning a lot as we go -- this has been a pretty immersive adventure. Anchoring in the Tuomotus was a daunting challenge because of all the coral heads and shallow depths, as was getting into the atolls and timing the slack tide through their passes. But I am really glad we made the effort, the atolls of the Tuamotus are some of the most beautiful places I’ve visited and understand why people get long term visas and spend years here. Remote, pristine, beautiful, lovely swimming and diving, empty beaches, so many colorful fish. Well worth visiting, a bit more effort but I’d highly recommend seeing them. We only have a couple weeks on our visa and there is so much to see just to the west of Tahiti, but that will have to wait for the next trip. I’d highly recommend to anyone planning on visiting this area to apply for the long stay visa in advance, even if you don’t plan on staying. We’ve met many people who changed their plans and stayed here a few years or left their boat for the hurricane season and then returned year after year.

Two nights ago we went to the opening ceremonies for the start of the Heiva festival, a festival of performance, sports and pageantry to celebrate Polynesian culture that runs over three long weekends. All the islands are represented and they have competitions of dance, music, sports, etc. It being the first night we sat through a lot of introductions and warm up chit chat in Tahitian and French. I was getting worried that the whole night was going to be a snooze. But the performances got started with a strong choir at first then a small choir that wasn't mic'd well so sounded not very good, then the main show of the evening, a large hundred-person dance group backed by a 20-person percussion band. Over-the-top amazing...they went on for an hour of choreographed dancing, and costume changes with the band just killing it, a wall of sound that somehow should have been a pure cacophony but was beautiful harmony, a religious experience. Wood drums, skin drums, lengths of hollow wood, at one point they had wood trays of stones that they "played" using small metal trays over their hands, as though the sea was joining in. The dancing impressive, something out of a Berkeley Busby fantasy, towering headdresses, belts of woven grasses with flowers worked in, and the costumes, wow, headdresses with long thin branches pokin, grasses woven into bracelets at the ankle. 100 dancers moving in graceful unison. Mesmerizing.

There are a few tasks to wrap up before we set sail from Pape'ete. We are planning on leaving tomorrow morning, making for Mo'orea. After two weeks of boat projects, visiting chandleries, walking back and forth across town for groceries, etc. We are both ready for some time in the wild. First we have to stow a stack of canned courgettes, champignons and ratatouille a la Provencale, wash the decks, and lash down the dinghy. Looking forward to getting back on the open ocean.

"I thought it was an adventure but really it was life" Joseph Conrad

Au Revoir La Paz, Buenos Dias Las Islas Marquesas

March 12, 2017 by Morgan Henry

Au Revoir Mexico, Buenos Dias Las Islas Marquesas

La Paz Mexico

The great Mexico adventure is winding down and we are preparing to set sail for the Marquesas

Last week we were on the cusp of departure to the south seas, Nuku Hiva was glowing on the chart taped to the bulkhead. Douglas and I had set about converting Tumbleweed to passage mode, we had finished provisioning, and started the process of clearing out with the port authorities. I had written up a last blog post to wrap up our time in Mexico and line up our sights to the western horizon, waiting until the morning of departure to hit send. Instead, I came down with a bad cold that turned into strep throat. After a quick, inexpensive visit to the doctor I was on antibiotics. I’ve fully recovered and we took advantage of the extra week to continue our studies of the weather and the islands, deal with our water heater failing, and make another visit to our friend Martin, who runs the greatest produce in all of Baja.

The ideal weather wind of last week has, of course, wandered off, but we are ready to set out and are planning on completing our check out process tomorrow and setting out in the afternoon. The forecast is for very light winds in the sea of Cortez for the next week, so it is likely we’ll be forced to motor, but hopefully we can use the spinnaker to make our way out of the sea and to the Pacific. Winds are also forecast to be light offshore for the next few days so maybe we’ll get a chance to really work the spinnaker.

La Paz has been a good base to plan the next leg of our adventure, sailing to the Marquesas and working our way through the islands of the south pacific, aiming for New Zealand by October. The trip is about 3,000 miles and we project it to take between 3 to 4 weeks. We are both pretty excited about getting started, we miss being at sea and under sail. There is a constant subconscious pull to be back on the ocean, to be back under the brilliant night sky, surrounded by ocean, visited by dolphins, whales, sea birds, flying fish.

As continues to happen when I think of visiting a place my projections and expectations were vastly different from the reality of the experience. After reading Steinbeck’s “Log of the Sea of Cortez” I imagined us sailing around the sea for a few months, stopping off at villages oozing Spanish colonial vibes, visiting humble Mission style churches, swimming daily in gin-clear waters, fishing for our dinner. There was some of that, anchoring out, wandering down the Baja peninsula and spending time out at Isla Espiritu Santo, and even a couple churches built in the 1700's. But not a thorough exploration, La Paz is more of a cross roads for the government of Baja California Sur, as the state's capitol, and hub of regional commerce, with a large commuity of gringo expats. We enjoyed our time in La Paz, spending time with friends, preparing for our trip across the Pacific and taking care of a handful of boat projects. But I think Douglas and I are both in agreement that we'd like to come back and spend a lot more time exploring this area, particularly in the fall before the northerlies start to roll in.

People have been incredibly kind, there are plenty of yacht repair services and supplies, and the marina, Costa Baja, has been a secure, clean, well run base. One of the projects I tackled was sewing awnings for Tumbleweed. The marina has a crew lounge with TV, book exchange, etc. It is seldom if ever used and I was able to set up shop there for a week and sew up all the awnings, a large one that covers the deck from the mast to the bow, and a couple smaller ones that can attach to the boom and run out to the lifelines. We had a few really hot days and the awnings were a great help, dropped the temperature down and filtered the light so it wasn’t so harsh inside. In the tropics when it is raining and hot I think it will be nice to have the awnings up so we can leave the hatches open. Although the Sailrite is kind of a beast to store it has been a really handy piece of gear to have along, I've used it quite a bit for canvas repair and for making various covers, etc.

We tackled a handful of other boat projects, engine maintenance, generator repair, studied weather, researched routes. We often refer to our adventure as going to boat college, and we had some good "courses" during our winter term in La Paz.

Crew from Essencia, Pino and Tumbleweed going over the finer points of a Monitor windvane.

Claudia, of Essencia, our dear friend who is a constant source of positive energy. Ready for Carnaval.

El Profesor, our friend Kim of Essencia.

One of the main attractions of La Paz was our friends on Essencia and Pino had arrived before us. It was nice to catch up with them, we tend to have great wandering conversations over all sorts of topics reflecting the various backgrounds - biology, technology, art, science, politics, religion. We shared some great times together. We met Kim and Claudia of Essencia in Port Townsend and spent two winters down the dock from each other and this past fall traveled down the west coast together. They introduced us to Rekka and Devine on Pino and we’ve all sort of leap frogged, meandered and tagged along with each other down the coast. Essencia is currently anchored out at some magical cove, and Pino is a week out of La Paz en route to Nuku Hiva, currently enjoying some sweet sailing and beautiful seas.

Douglas at Doce Cuarenta, our favorite coffee joint.

Love the logo at Doce Cuarenta, so much great Day of the Dead skull art in Baja.

The scope of this next leg of our adventure is settling in. To sail from Mexico to the Marquesas, around 2,800 nautical miles, should take us 3-4 weeks. Of constant sailing. There is a large map on the wall of cabin to remind us of the scale of things, that Baja is a long way from the cluster of small islands that make up the Marquesas. We have a good window for weather in the coming week to get away from the Sea of Cortez and offshore, from there we’ll keep a watch on the doldrums, the band of weather that circles the earth near the equator. Known mostly for light winds, squalls, and thunderstorms. It can be a few hundred miles across and we will aim to spend as little time in it as we can. Our visa for French Polynesia will limit our time in French governed islands to three months. Then we work our way through the Cook islands and Fiji before heading to New Zealand in late September. That is the plan, but plans aboard a sailboat are ever changing, adjusting to the realities of weather, vessel and crew.

Soon we’ll give a last wave to the cactus, whale sharks, wonderful dry heat, the clear clear waters of the Sea of Cortez and the people who have been so kind to us. Most of our sailing friends are continuing to explore Mexico or have plans for heading to South America or through the Panama canal. We'll miss discussing paradoxes with the crew of Bloom, over our weekly meet ups at the coffee shop. Our friends on Adventurer are on to the Mexican mainland, searching for tasty waves and small villages to do good deeds. Joe and Jami of Sherpa are exploring the islands to the north. It's a big world but a small community cruisers, I look forward to crossing paths with them all down the line.

A familiar sight on the road from La Paz to Costa Baja.

A bit of blog "housekeeping". Squarespace no longer supports blog posting via email. so when we are at sea or away from wifi, we'll post over to another site, then duplicate here when we catch up to wifi. Agreed, it's a hassle, I'm just not in the mood to revamp this whole site yet over that feature, but probably will at one point. Our map will still be updated on this website, using Farkwar, you can sign up to follow us at www.farkwar.com, search for Tumbleweed and select follow, you'll receive an email when we update location. Remote posting of the blog while en route will be at: http://nowheretumbleweed.blogspot.com

Sea of Cortez

January 26, 2017 by Morgan Henry

La Paz, Costa Baja Marina

The Sea of Cortez

On Christmas Eve we set out from San Jose del Cabo north for Ensenada de los Muertos. We made an early start to arrive at the fuel dock when it opened at 6am and landed there just as the fishermen started rolling out for the day. Several small boats buzzed in around us, quickly taking on fuel and then setting out. Making our way out to the sea from the inner basin we passed a crowd of various sized charter boats buying bait off fishermen in pangas. They had formed a line across the channel and were hoisting nets of small fish across the boats, we fell into line behind a large fishing boat and slowly made our way out. I was focused on the pangas, day boats, a couple large motor yachts all moving slowing and gracefully around each other in the narrow passage, trying to keep to the dredged part of the channel and avoiding the rocks to starboard. Glancing up I watched as the ridiculously out of scale National Geographic cruise ship “Sea Bird” made her way into the cove. The rest of the vessels seemed like toys, and it was a wonder there was draft enough for the “Bird”. She moved in gracefully, seeming to nod down at the rest of us as she went by. The fishermen scattered to the edges, I did my best to drift from the center of the channel as we skimmed past each other.

The waters of the Sea of Cortez were settled and we had a generous sky as we made our way north. We never saw more than a few knots of wind and were forced to motor 14 hours. We arrived after dark feeling our way into the bay with chart plotter and radar. The shore and other boats always feel closer in the dark, the lights on masts easily confused with those on the shore. Radar helps - the shore becomes a blobby red line and the other boats in the bay become undulating red blobs that wink in and out with the waves. There were many boats already at anchor when we arrived and with our natural caution when approaching a new bay we anchored far from the shore. On sunrise the following morning it was clear that we were on the verge of ridiculously distant from the shore, but given that the bay shoals quite a way and that there were many boats bobbing it felt right.

Ensenada de los Muertos was a beautiful place to spend Christmas Eve. After putting Tumbleweed to bed and getting the boat sorted I made a dinner of Douglas’ favorite eggplant parmesan. We listened to an old podcast of Terry Gross interviewing Leonard Cohen. Cohen singing “You Want It Darker” is probably not everyone’s go to Christmas carol but I found it beautiful and resonant. “ A million candles burning for the help that never came”…..indeed.

In the light of Christmas Day the bay showed itself to be beautiful in the particular way of all remote, barren places of the desert. A small restaurant at the north end of the bay, a concrete ramp for fishermen to run their pangas into the sea, south a cluster of sharp looking buildings that make up a small hotel and vacation homes. The space between them and out to the distant horizon was desolate. Cactus, sand, a scraggle of fence, in the far distance to the south we could make out the handful of lights of a distant village, to the north on a bluff overlooking the sea scattered a few vacation homes that lit up for a couple hours each night at sunset but dimmed quickly.

The week we spent at anchor there was a welcome shift from our time in San Jose del Cabo. Winds picked up each morning and Tumbleweed bobbed in the waves, the wind generator howling and threatening to lift off but producing loads of power - 10 amps at times. At night the winds usually died and we would lie beam to, rolling back and forth in the waves. The first couple of nights it was just too much and we slept little. Rolling back and forth in our berth, contents in lockers sliding from one side to the other, us roaming about packing cloths, towels, books here and there to quiet Tumbleweed. We made it to shore several of the days, and several of the days the winds and seas were just too much for our little dinghy and we stayed aboard. We met a cheerful family from Santa Barbara who knew Ken Minor and of “Morning Song”, we shared a couple meals ashore and Douglas set up a VHF game of riddles with the girls. It’s continues to surprise me how we meet people and strike up conversations and connections that can range over sailing, politics, books, technology, home ports, etc in such compact amounts of time. We enjoyed their company very much and were sorry to head north when the weather cleared.

One of the rules of sailing in the Sea of Cortez at this time of year is to travel when the weather opens up, hunker down when the northers blow and enjoy where you are for as long as a cycle takes. When the weather opened up on New Year’s eve it appeared that the door would be held open for only a couple days before closing with another strong cycle of heavy winds and their attendant uncomfortable seas. Espiritu Santo beckoned, a national park with many bays and coves, clear waters, and a stunning landscape.

New Year's Eve, Playa Bonanza, Espiritu Santo

When we had anchored on Christmas Eve, Douglas noticed that our infamous gypsy had broken once again. This time at the tack welds. This saga is woven through pretty much every post since May of 2016 so I won’t go into the details. But given that this was the third gypsy we’d installed with much drama and hassle over the past year, it was quite the capper to the year. Douglas managed to align the gypsy and tighten the brake enough to keep it working to haul up our chain. His Christmas present to me was not telling me it had broken until a couple days after Christmas...

New Year’s eve we had a beautiful sail to Espiritu Santo. Light winds, a flat sea, making an average 5 knots. The landscape along the coast was mesmerizing, red earth, the occasional mound that looked to be from a long dormant volcano. We passed Jacques Cousteau island, saw the occasional distant boat, passed too close for comfort several fishing nets. Large plastic buoys marked the ends of massive nets just left to hang in the sea, capturing whatever passed their way, thankfully not us.

We made Playa Bonanza on Espiritu Santo late in the afternoon, with plenty of time to take in the large bay and the 11 other vessels including a couple super yachts. From a distance there are no signs of manmade structures, the interior is barren and covered with cactus and the occasional shrub. After an early morning start and a day on the water we didn’t last until midnight but had a good send off to the old year. Over the next few days the most of the other boats left and we re-anchored closer to shore and tucked up into the north end of the cove. The shallower and more protected waters let us get a better night’s sleep and kept Tumbleweed more stable during the day. The beach is covered in shells most ground to small pieces, but also a beautiful assortment of various cones, scallops, whelks, in a wide range of pastels. We spent hours walking the beach fascinated by the remains of puffer fish, bones of birds, shells, bits of coral. The action of the waves sorting out the elements by size so that some parts of the beach were covered in large shells and other parts were covered in small broken pieces worn smooth by the waves.

Playa Bonanza was pretty well covered with shells, bits of shells and bones of fish and birds.

On the first of the year I glanced over the side and noticed the water was so clear I could see our anchor and anchor chain in the pristine white sand. I spotted a school of over 65 sting rays that hovered near our bow, drifting with the current, splitting apart for a few moments, than reforming to hang in the sea, casting shadows to the sand below. It was a magic welcome to the island and the new year.

Just to the north of Playa Bonanza, Espiritu Santo

Most days we were able to make our way to the shore and explore the beach, or the small cove just to the north. But as with Ensenada de los Muertos we had many days where the winds were just too strong to make it to shore with our dinghy. If the outboard had conked out I don’t think we would have been able to row our way against the waves and wind. Most days were glorious there, the light sharp and clear, the sunset behind the island each night washed the sky with various shades of orange, the distant mainland usually settling back, outlined with a wash of pale blue that darkened with each receding mountain range.

The inner basin at Costa Baja Marina, La Paz

The narrow channel, blasted from the desert that leads to the inner harbor at Costa Baja Marina.

Soon enough the call of civilization got the better of us and we made our way to La Paz. We’ve been here a couple of weeks and have been enjoying the town and marina. Our friends on Essencia and Sherpa are at the same marina. Our friends on Pino are at a marina in town. There’s a shuttle that runs between the marina and town many times a day. The marina, Costa Baja, is essentially a gated community a couple of miles out of town. Traveling between the two is like leaving a neighborhood in Phoenix and being beamed into Mexico. There is a golf course, several good restaurants, a hotel and the beginnings of a community of high-end vacation homes. The few houses on the hillside overlooking the marina wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of Dwell. The marina was blasted out of the desert, the rock and debris from the inner marina used to create the outer breakwater. It is an impressive achievement. The staff is friendly and the place is very well managed. It is what our friend Kim refers to as “the gilded cage”, and I’d have to second that. Although the islands and remote anchorages call, the marina whispers “infinity pool, Japanese food, laundry service”.

It has been a good city to explore. There is an excellent farmer’s market twice a week, the core of downtown has a central square with trees providing shade over a several benches, narrow winding streets , good food is plentiful, people are really friendly, and although a bit rough around the edges, it’s a pleasant city. Families stroll the malecon as the sun sets, and the city shows another side of its personality. Late in the evening cafes and clubs begin to bustle.

There are various services for the boating community. We were able to find a machinist to re-weld our broken gypsy, he did an excellent job of welding the halves back together and milling it all back to spec. There are also several chandleries around town and other basic boating services. And there are those massive grocery stores. A good place to restock and deal with repairs.

Organizing the Jordan Series Drogue for the South Pacific

Our ever evolving plan is to head north next week when we get a weather window and spend a few weeks exploring the islands between here and perhaps Loreto, though I don’t think we’ll get that far north. We’ll head back to La Paz in late February and sort out our trip to the South Pacific. We have been spending part of our time in La Paz doing research and trying to get our minds around sailing all the way to the Marquesas. Much to do to get ready but we are both excited to make the long crossing and begin working our way westward.

The Baja Coast

December 22, 2016 by Morgan Henry

Douglas and I are in San Jose del Cabo, watching for a weather window to sail north into the Sea of Cortez, and attempting to process the latest stage in our adventure. In the past few days we crossed the Tropic of Cancer, and are now officially in the tropics, we have rounded the Cape at San Lucas and are beginning to edge into the Gulf of California. It is humbling to think that in May we left our little group of friends and snug harbor in Port Townsend, made our way along the inside passage of Vancouver Island, rounded Cape Scott on a glorious morning and have since sailed the west coast of Vancouver Island, the west coast of the United States, and now have completed sailing the west coast of the Baja Peninsula. We are here at a place that we sketched out in conversations, building a picture in our minds of what it would be like to arrive in the Sea of Cortez, how inadequate our powers of imagination compared to the reality of now.

Below are a few journal entries and notes on our trip south from Ensenada.

Bahia Tortuga

The black stains of lost cuttlefish tattoo our deck, salt has dried in large flakes across all surfaces exposed to the sea, Tumbleweed has returned to peacefully rocking us in the swell of the bay. My hands are sore from hanging on to the stern arch or gripping the railing around the dodger, after a deep sleep last night I am still weary and taking great pleasure in sitting at the table in the salon, drinking coffee and having toast for breakfast.

Since leaving Ensenada on December 2nd we have had a good adventure at sea. We left Cruiseport marina under blue skies and with only a few knots of wind. As we motored out past the Islas Todos Santos the wind picked up and we were able to set sail in 10-14 knots of breeze. We had an excellent afternoon of sailing, averaging over six knots boat speed for much of the day. Late in the afternoon the winds began to build and we reduced sail, putting in two reefs in the mainsail and furling in two reefs in the genoa for the night. Tumbleweed continued to romp along through the night, at times surfing over 8 knots, but mostly ranging from close to six knots to around seven. The seas were mostly organized along a shared wave train that worked against us for the first part of the evening. As we've experienced before, if we are sailing at an angle that puts us with even a slight beam to the waves and at odds to the wind direction the ride is pretty uncomfortable. Tumbleweed drops off the waves and rolls back and forth. It is a noisy, jarring ride.

Our first night out was clear and the stars and milky way were mesmerizing. I would spend my hours on watch looking at the sky, watching the sliver of moon as it traced the sky for a few hours, leaving us well before midnight, the sky and seas diminished without their counterpart the moon lighting the way.

The weather and seas held the first two nights at sea, we sailed with strong winds - mostly in the mid-20's with gusts into the 30's, and seas that began steep with short intervals to longer rolling swells as the winds began to ease. Sometime in the second day we gibed over back toward land and we were much more comfortable. The winds aligned with the swell and we kept a course fairly direct to Bahia Tortuga.

There is a fair amount of shipping and cruise ship traffic running along the coast here and a few pleasure boats, not many commercial fishing vessels. We saw a few sport fishing yachts but only a couple commercial boats. Nor did we see much wildlife at sea. No whales, only one pod of dolphins near Ensenada. No late night visits from dolphins playing in our wake, or whales spouting in the distance.

Our friends Devine and Rekka aboard Pino left Ensenada a few hours after us and hailed us on our third day at sea. We were all facing the same problem of closing on Bahia Tortuga after dark. We did not want to enter the bay after dark, it being an unknown anchorage with a passage through an area lined with reefs and kelp, with reports of many lobster pot floats in the entry and throughout the bay. We discussed our plans to slow our way south so as to arrive in daylight. We intended to keep offshore, reduce sail as much as possible and head back for the bay sometime in the early morning hours.

After midnight the winds dropped to a couple of knots and the seas calmed. We were rolling back and forth and began making our way slowly back toward land. With all sails down we were "sailing" under bare poles, still making 1-2 knots, barely enough to maintain steerage. But we could just keep our bow pointed where we wanted to go and rolled along pretty comfortably until a bit before dawn and only a few miles from the bay when we fired up the engine and motored in the remaining hour or so.

It was an awe inspiring sight to see the sun lift over Bahia Tortuga. The bay is a vast body of water, backed by desert, with a small, gaily colored village tucked up neatly along the northern curve. There were a few boats anchored near the village and a couple out further in the bay. We saw Pino and anchored a few hundred feet from them. The sun was beginning to climb and in the cloudless morning the heat rose with as well.

We made quick work of anchoring in 26 feet. Off went the layers of black sailing gear, boots, gloves, heavy coats. Soon we were in shorts putting Tumbleweed to bed, covering sails, tidying lines, straightening out the cabin. While putting away the mainsail Douglas discovered a cuttlefish had somehow found its way up into the fold of our reefed mainsail. We now have a black silhouette of a small cuttlefish stenciled on the sail.

As the afternoon began to fade and the bay became orange with the setting sun, a small fishing boat began to work its nets near us. With a crew of a about 6, they had run out a large net and were pulling it back aboard with the aid of a couple small pangas. We waved and shouted greetings back and forth, the fishermen waving a small fish our way and telling us they were fishing for Sardines. Dolphins and seals frolicked around the boat, a polite line of pelicans bobbed nearby, gulls circled the air above. It was a timeless vision. Easy to imagine Steinbeck pulling into this bay and witnessing a scene not much changed.

Bahia Tortuga. Much of the Baja coastline was like this - austere, remote, beautiful.

After putting Tumblweed back in order we had tacos for lunch with some of the excellent tortillas from a small tortillaria we visited in Ensenada, with a frosty beer. Then we slept deeply for a couple of hours. Last night we managed to stay awake until 9pm but crashed hard and were out until early this morning.

We were up at 8:30 finished breakfast when Devine and Rekka set sail. The motored by us slowly, getting video of us in our pajamas as we waved back and forth wishing each other safe sailing, and looking forward to seeing each other in La Paz. We are sorry to see them go, it was nice to be at sea knowing we had friends going through the same adventures.

Bahia Santa Maria

Anchored about a quarter mile from shore in 24 feet. The sound of surf is a gentle wash in the background. Last night we had a near full moon and a band of coyotes called out from the shore as the sun set. We watched through binoculars as they searched the waterline, sniffing at the wash of sea that rolled onto the beach. Two ranged east and a third wandered west. We watched them until the light faded and we could barely make out their silhouettes against the backing dunes.

We have been here two nights after sailing from Bahia Tortuga. We were exhausted on arrival, after putting Tumbleweed to bed and doing a little cleaning we had a light dinner and fell into a deep black hole of sleep. Yesterday we lazed about the boat, the sun is warm here, pleasant, with a light breeze. We had considered going ashore but the wind picked up in the afternoon and it would have been unpleasant trying to get ashore, if even possible. We are planning on going ashore today, if the winds are favorable. The beach is tantalizing - miles of long, light sand with high dunes in the background, rolling off to the horizon.

The bay is quiet, wild, raw, remote. There is a small cluster of buildings on the spur of mount San Lazaro, at night a couple of the buildings have faint lights, but otherwise there is no sign of population. There are three fishing boats in the bay - large trawlers - that go to work when the sun sets.

It feels good to be at anchor in such a remote place. I realized that since we left Vancouver island in August we have been staying at marinas with the exception of a few nights when we anchored in the channel islands. Otherwise, it has been a long stretch of marinas and cities and towns. Here we have pelicans, coyotes, a couple of seals, and Magnificent Frigatebirds. The Frigatebirds were a gorgeous sight to see, gliding about with sharply angled wings and long pointed tail feathers, they looked like a Matisse cutout against the blue cloudless sky. Lovely sight.

Tumbleweed at anchor, Bahia Santa Maria, Baja

Punta Belcher, Bahia Magdalena

We had quite an afternoon. We left Bahia Santa Maria around 2:30 heading for Bahia Magdelana. As we sailed out of the bay the winds piped up a bit and with all sails set we changed out plans - we were going to sail for Cabo San Lucas. The seas were calm and the winds seemed solid, so we thought we'd just charge on ahead. After a couple hours, the winds died completely - about a knot of wind just puffing around. Back to plan A - as we approached the entrance to the bay the sun set and there was an hour between sunset and the moonrise, so we motored slowly, using binoculars to watch for lobster pot floats. Then the moon rose - like a massive street light flipped on. We could clearly see the whole bay. We motored across water as calm as a pond and dropped anchor around 8pm. We are well set with the anchor and will figure out a plan in the morning. This is a massive bay - around 80 square miles - so we might hang out here until the winds build from the north so we can sail to San Jose del Cabo.

This bay is so different already from the one we left. There are lights along the shore and many boats out fishing and zipping about, even late at night. At Bahia Santa Maria, there was little activity and some days, none. Usually the fishermen anchored during the day then set out for fishing as the sun set - trolling the waters slowly all night.

Today we had several whales surface near us, and watched many dolphins in the bay diving for fish. The coast line here is beautiful - very austere, rocky, with no sign of vegetation. It was a powerful image to see the sun set and rake across the mountains.

We left Bahia Santa Marie mid-day yesterday hoping to catch the afternoon winds for the 15 mile or so trip south to Bahia Magdalena. By the time we had hauled up anchor, made our way to the mouth of the bay, found a bit of wind and hoisted sails we began to realize that our goal was too distant for the afternoon and we'd be arriving after dark. We aren't fans of arriving at a new anchorage in the dark and after a bit of thinking it over deciding that given the good conditions, and near full moon, we'd instead head offshore and make our way to San Jose del Cabo. That thought lasted a couple hours, then the winds died and we were sitting a few miles offshore with the prospect of spending the evening rolling in the swell within sight of land. We reviewed the charts, considered the weather and that the moon would be a ninety-nine percenter, that the bay is massive and the anchorage pretty straightforward, and bounced back to our original plan. Which of course made sense all along.

We ghosted along under sail until the winds dropped to two knots and then switched to engine. As we neared the mouth of the bay the sun set and we spent an hour in darkness, idling along at slow speed, waiting for the moon to rise. The moon rose over the bay as a fiery orange and red mass, distorted as it broke free of the horizon. Soon we had a full moon lighting the way, the bay was clearly lit up, and we could see a couple dozen small motor boats, pangas, out fishing. The tidal current into the bay was running pretty swift - we were getting a bit over 2 knots, perhaps up to 3, of current speed. With the engine idling we were seeing speeds over 7 knots as we came into the bay and made for our anchorage.

Bahia Magdalena is about 80 square miles, a massive bay, that wraps around to a small opening to the sea. Once inside the distant eastern shore is a small sliver of tan with a miniature smokestack puffing away. We anchored off Punta Belcher with a few fishing pangas zipping about but otherwise left to ourselves. In the morning we'd find that an abandoned pier and ramshackle cluster of shacks lined the shore but last night it was all silhouette of a gentle shouldered ridgeline backed by a clear night of stars.

The anchor was set a bit after 7 and we quickly put Tumbleweed to bed and went about prepping dinner. Today we set out more detailed plans for our trip south and organized Tumbleweed for passage. We also took apart the mechanism to engage our autopilot - it had been sticking and we were at the point of no longer using it, after taking it apart we saw that there was heavy corrosion around some of the threads and soon had it all sorted out and reassembled. It will be good to have the auto helm up and running if we have to motor on the trip south.

A Tartan yacht makes her way into Bahia Magdalena

Short term forecast is for light winds over the next couple of days followed by a few days of very little winds. We are going to take our chances with light winds tomorrow and head out mid day, trying to catch some afternoon winds to get off shore, and make for San Jose del Cabo. We'll check into the marina there for a couple nights, stock up on produce, refuel and head north for La Paz with a few stops at some beautiful anchorages in the Sea of Cortez.

View from our slip, Puerto Los Cabos marina

San Jose del Cabo

The seas threw a bit of everything our way on the sail from Magdalena bay. We had a couple of days of light winds that kept us rolling with sails banging for much of it. We went through pretty much every sail combination on the way south looking for a fast and comfortable mix. Full sails; gennaker; poled out genoa; furled genoa with reefed main. Hours of great sailing, mixed with hours of uncomfortable wallowing with the genoa filling as we surfed along until we rode over a large wave, stalled a bit and were back winded enough to through us off course for a moment, the large genoa collapsing and banging around. We would have been better served to set the whisker pole with the genoa and did use it during the day a bit, but it kind of narrows our options for night sailing so we stow it away in the late afternoon.

There is a vast difference between being on watch, on deck, watching the horizon tilt and roll away with each wave, the sound of the waves rushing by, wind across the sails, all so beautiful and often powerful. Compared to life below deck, without the horizon in sight - even if peripherally - the world is just so much more chaotic and unorganized. The immediate sounds in the cabin are of objects sliding around in the lockers, halyards in the mast that bang back and forth. If the sails pop, or the boom catches on the main sheet, the sound above is normal and part of the whole, but below it can reverberate and sound like something awful is happening, that the world is above is out of control. When we have had light winds and the sails tend to backwind and slap, there is a light flutter to the sails that sends out a message, if below deck I tense up, wait for the sounds to slap - will it pass with a light flutter, or will the sail back fully- hang for a moment - and fill, slapping out with the crack of a shot?

When the winds and seas line up, downwind sailing can be a as good as it gets, and we had plenty of solid hours of great sailing after leaving Magdalena bay. The two nights we spent at sea were pretty uncomfortable, I don’t think either of us got more than an hour or two of sleep over the two nights. Tumbleweed would bash along, dropping off the backside of waves, shudder, pick up speed, cruise along for a bit, then repeat. But the two nights at sea were beautiful, the moon was waning, a few nights from full, and when it rose the water would shimmer with patches of silver and white foam. The moon became a presence we acknowledged and looked forward to seeing. The night sky the first night was really clear and we spent hours in the cockpit trying to pick out constellations.

Rounding Cabo Falso in the early morning hours the winds were very light and we were forced to motor for a couple of hours. Dropping the genoa we left up the main for stability and rolled along. Just before sunrise the winds picked up and we ran into steep waves that had been built up in the Sea of Cortez. We had quite the rude welcome to the waters of the sea. Strong winds, solidly in the mid-20kts directly on the nose, and short, sharp seas. We sailed with a double reefed genoa and a single reef in the main, taking a long port tack in the direction of the mainland for a couple of hours - the starboard tack toward the baja peninsula was at that point untenable. So we crashed along at 6 knots or so, moving steadily away from the comfort of the marina. Once we felt we had made a decent distance from the cape we tacked back and worked our way back toward the coast and a little closer toward San Jose del Cabo. A few shorter tacks after that the winds dropped to a couple knots, the seas calmed to the point of looking like a pond on asummer afternoon. We motored the last few miles in to the marina, noting that the early morning chaos was already feeling like a distant, thrilling dream.

The marina here is well run and mostly home to large, expensive motor yachts. There is a small section in the marina for sailboats and we lucked into the end tie on the dock, usually reserved for catamarans. One of the staff told us this was the first time the marina has been completely booked. It is a combination of one of the nicest marinas we’ve been in, and also weirdly rough around the edges. I think the Four Season’s resort have some involvement - they have residences down the road - but a group has put a fortune into building this place. Lining the path from our dock to the office are beautiful and strange bronze statues with some mythological bent. Staff is excellent, and at the completed docks where the large yachts are, I believe they are on desalinated water, with a secure gate and staff at the head of each dock. We are on the other side of the marina, no gate, no electricity and the water is untreated. But - we have crazy wifi access - 6Mbps up and 6Mbps down - which is kinda nuts. The immediate grounds are lush and nicely landscaped with cactus and many bushes in full bloom. But off the main track it’s pretty raw.

The norther that greeted us as we sailed in continues to howl and the forecast is for strongwinds the next few days. We’ll hang out here until we get a weather window and then head north, hoping to anchor at Los Frailles, and Los Muertos, and Isla Espiritu Santu before getting to La Paz and catching up with our friends there.

Ensenada

November 27, 2016 by Morgan Henry

Ensenada, Mexico November 27, 2016

We have arrived in Mexico. It was a strange and beautiful trip down the coast over the past couple of days. Our second night we sailed within sight of Tijuana - a scattering of lights in an otherwise black landmass. The sliver of moon that rose over the hills was blood red and came up like the horns of a beast - first just two slim tips then the rest of moon rising slowly behind in a red sky. We had chaotic seas and strong winds our first day and most of the first night, which diminished for Thanksgiving. We had light winds and calm seas for the holiday. I had cooked up a few dishes in advance and baked up a batch of buttermilk biscuits to go with the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted veggies and carrot, dried papaya salad (the closest we could come to what we really missed - cranberries!). I roasted an apple for dinner and was going to serve it with whipped cream but we had no appetite left the rest of the day. It was calm enough to open the table in the cockpit and dine like civilized folks.

The sail down from Ventura was divided by the weather of the first and second days. The first day we headed offshore to catch winds to sail by, and that caught us up in good winds but lumpy seas and put us at a contrary angle to comfort. There might be an index for that - your CAC rating for the day, ours would have been really high, or really low, depending on which system you use. For the 24 hours of the run, until we we well offshore of San Diego, we were being tossed around pretty regularly by the contrary wave train. I had a few moments of levitation out of my berth that night. The next morning we were far enough offshore to gybe over and set a clean course for Ensenada. That angle lined us up with the wind and waves and was much more comfortable, the winds also settled down from the mid-20kts, gusting up to the high 30s, down a much more manageable 15kts or so. Thanksgiving was pretty gorgeous sailing, well spaced swells that rolled along, and a steady breeze.

The strong winds on Wednesday had us flying down the coast and put us ahead of schedule so late Thursday we reduced sail so we could time our arrival into Ensenada in the morning. We could have made amazing time but instead drifted along under a reefed genoa and our tiny trys’l. Early Friday morning, around 2:30, the winds died off and we motored the rest of the way in, with the exception of a few minutes in Bahia Todos Santos, the bay in front of Ensenada, when we were fooled by some strong winds, hoisting our sails, only to have the winds die a few minutes after putting them up.

Another gorgeous sunrise coming into Bahia Todos Santos. The sun came up behind the foothills behind the town, the winds died over the bay and a large pod of dolphins passed our bow and then returned to frolic around us for ten minutes.

We have checked in through customs and completed all the paperwork needed to be in Mexico for the next six months. The marina has an employee who drove us to the offices of the harbor captain and helped us through the process. It all took around a half hour, and was efficient and hassle free. We had completed much of the paperwork in advance - the visas, the temporary import permit for Tumbleweed, etc. and that process was time consuming, but once we arrived at the offices of the immigration and port authority it all breezed by. High marks to the marina for offering the assistance.

Ensenada isn’t what either of us expected. Much bigger, sprawling, and touristy. Sailing in our last night we kept pace with two large cruise ships that docked an hour or so before us, next to our marina. They are massive ships and loom over the marina sending a few thousand tourists into town.

Our first slip assignment was a gorgeous, easy-to-dock-in slip. We drifted in, tied up and Douglas went to check us in. He returned with the news that the slip was expensive - we were being charged for the cost of the whole slip, not a cost based on our boat length, a more typical approach. We’d save a about $130usd to switch to a smaller slip on the other side of the marina. We set out from the massive fairway, easy to glide into slip across town to a narrow fairway lined with boat that were mostly too long for their berths - various bows, dinghies and assorted accessories poking out into the fairway. We didn’t have enough room to maneuver in the fairway and jiggled around back and forth, caught a side current that started to push us sideways into a space of no return. The docks were now filling up with people who wanted to lend a hand and also check out what sort of carnage might unfold. We managed to back into a slip across the fairway from our intended slip, fortunately available, with a remarkable lack of cursing or fist shaking. A friendly neighbor grabbed a line and soon we were home.

After checking in with customs, et al, we managed to gather enough energy to walk into town for lunch. We had gone over to the port captain’s office with another sailor who had visited Ensenada many times and recommended a great restaurant to us, La Guerrerense (http://laguerrerense.com) A woman started a taco cart here and ran it with acclaim. Anthony Bourdain had visited and declared it one of the world’s greatest street food joints. La Guerrerense is rumored to be part of Bourdain’s food market in NY. Now she has the cart and a nice restaurant serving all types of seafood tacos, ceviches, tostados, a line of house made beer and various salsas. The tacos - we each had a shrimp and fish taco, were amazing, as was the house beer and salsa. Tacos were $1 a piece, and perfect. Kind feels like a parallel universe. I was dazed after the sail in, and the trip to the various authorities, I spent some time rerunning the costs in my head, sure I was off by a factor of 2 or 3. The entire staff could not have been more friendly or genuine and indulged our slow Spanish before answering in english. We’ll be going back. It might delay our departure.

We’ve now been in Ensenada a couple days since I wrote the above notes and have really enjoyed the town. Our friends on SV Pino, “The Rabbits”, have been here about a month and we met up with them last night. We last saw each other in Berkeley and it was great to catch up and hear about their adventures. We met for beers at a cool craft beer joint, Wendlandt, that would not have been out of place in any hip neighborhood in Seattle, or Vancouver, BC. The crowd was mostly cool folks in their twenties, a mix of locals and ex-pats. They could have all strolled in from their jobs at Microsoft or Amazon, it was somewhat disorienting. And a reminder that our cultures in North America are incredibly intertwined.

Mexico has been such a focus for us over the past few years that it feels sort of unreal to actually be here. I guess that is a feeling we all have when we arrive anywhere, for vacation or work, etc that has been a place we have thought of for so long. In this situation, the passage south and the adventures we have had since leaving Port Townsend in May have really heightened that feeling. The days at sea, the ports where we worked on projects, the push ever southward, the research and paperwork. We have crossed over into a new chapter of our adventure and are enjoying the moment of being here. It all feels very of the present, the rest of our visit to Mexico opening up ahead, but slightly out of focus. A couple large marks on the map - La Paz at some point, Bandaras Bay in the spring, the Sea of Cortez as much as possible. But the rest is wonderfully vague.

Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz Island and Ventura

November 20, 2016 by Morgan Henry

Santa Barbara - Santa Cruz Island - Ventura

Ventura CA

November 20, 2016

Tied up in quaint and quiet Ventura marina. We had an excellent sail over from Santa Cruz island a few days ago, steady 15 knots for most of the short trip. A glorious morning, full sun, large gentle swells to keep things interesting. The marina was pretty easy to navigate, though at near low tide there were several spots that left only a few feet under our keel. Once we settled into our slip and the tide hit its lowest point we had about 6 inches under the keel. The past month we’ve made our way from Santa Barbara to Ventura with a few nights spent anchored at Smuggler’s Cove off Santa Cruz Island.

Looking east from Smuggler's Cove, Santa Cruz Island, to Anacapa Island and the almost super moon.

Santa Barbara was intended as a short stop to install our wind generator and solar panel. It was a classic lesson in how we continue to under estimate the time and complexity of boat projects. We had all the parts, we thought, and a clear plan for installation. Douglas had spent considerable time in the planning phase and working with E-Marine, where we bought all the parts for the project. In our minds it was as simple as clamping a few parts to our stern arch, running wires down through the stern arch, through the convenient areas under the cockpit coaming, to the quarter berth and wire in the control panel, a couple other small steps and we’d be wired into the battery bank making free electricity.

The plan didn’t go as planned. It was about two weeks of solid days working on the project, with I think 4 side trips to Santa Barbara proper, I abandoned my post twice to check out the amazing farmer’s market and felt slightly guilty until I realized as I walked into town that I hadn’t been out of the marina in days and only off the boat for the hour or so lunch break we took for fish tacos.

But the project is completed, and the electricity we are getting from both the solar panel and the wind generator, although not much, is exactly what we wanted. We have a genset, an on board diesel generator, that we can run for 50 amps of power - that will run our refrigerator, and other high demand equipment, as well as charge up the batteries. We like to run it as little as possible, and can usually get by with running it for the fridge every couple of days or so for an hour. That doesn’t fully top off our batteries, and our AGM battery bank likes to be topped off regularly. With solar and wind we can keep pace with our daily use, running the chartplotter, lights and other small electrical devices, and still top off the batteries.

Solar power had always been high on our list of projects for Tumbleweed, we just kept pushing it back waiting for prices to go down on hardware and for the technology to improve. It is the last of our intended projects for Tumbleweed, a major milestone for us. Future projects will be maintenance or repairs, replacements, etc. but we don’t have anything on the books of that sort. Which feels pretty good. We ended up installing one 100 Watt solar panel, and a 75 amp wind turbine, with a second solar panel that could be, one day, daisy chained to the first and run through the same controller.

Santa Barbara was a beautiful place to be stuck working on projects. We were at the eastern most end of the dock, looking out over the breakwater to the sea and to the east to the San Ynez mountains. The harbor dredging contraption is kept near there and is the home to hundreds of birds - pelicans, ducks, herons, gulls - including laughing gulls. The neighbors had raised a pair of mallards who had given a late season birth to a duckling. The experience was a vibrant choir of fowl. In the mornings we’d wake to the sound of the mallards honking and bleating to be fed, in mid-thought we’d be interrupted by the maniacal laughter of a gull, walking down the dock in the evening we might startle a heron and off it would go with a thunderous, cranky rant of a call. Pelicans would skim the waters of the marina, egrets would stand still on the breakwater as evening fell, their pure white glowing off the darkening rocks. It was a mesmerizing place. In the evenings, usually for an hour or so, the winds would shift from the east and we would get a wave of eye watering air from the bird community. Hundreds of birds can be a beautiful sight, but also a pungent one.

I give the Santa Barbara marina high marks for running a tight set up. They were near capacity for transient yachts when we arrived. The docks were clean and newer, and the marina staff were professional. Very few of the abandoned yachts that seem to be the scourge of almost all the marinas we visit. The boats that have been abandoned and sit there in the slip, rotting away, someone still paying the fees but never visiting the boat, keeping new folks from getting a slip and casting a sort of pall of doom over the vicinity of where they are tied up. In Santa Barbara they have a weird rule whereby the renter of a slip can sell their option to rent the space - which means that often times people selling a boat sell it with the option to rent their slip, people pay X for the boat, something else for the slip, then sell off the boat and and park their own yacht in the slip. There were slips listed for $100K…. for the right to rent the slip from the city. Bonkers.

We met a man who spent 28 years building a perfect wooden sailboat. Ken Minor built a Lyle Hess cutter, Morning Song. It is a stunning vessel, built by a perfectionist with the talent and patience to take boat building to another level. Morning Song is named for the time in day he would spend at the beach in religious contemplation, and there is something sacred about her. Webster’s defines a vessel as “a person into whom some quality (as grace)is infused”, and though some might think it a stretch to think of a vessel as a person, sailors tend to acknowledge the spirit within their boats.

Webb Chiles has written of how he “loves to enter the monastery of the sea”, Morning Song, with her perfect lines, trim almost spartan interior and glorious cabin brightwork has the feel of a space for contemplation. Running my hand over the interior’s woodwork I could grasp how a man would undertake the work of decades to be in the space of bringing such a vessel into the world.

Morning Song is identical to Taliesin, designed by Lyle Hess for Lin and Larry Pardey and made famous in their books and articles. That small boat and the couple who sailed her launched a generation of dreamers and romantics to all points of the world. The story of building Taliesin is described in “Bull Canyon” and “Details of Classic Boat Construction”. I was struck by how spacious the cabin felt and how light worked into the interior through the deck mounted prisms and small port lights.

I spent several hours over a couple of afternoons talking with Ken, part of the time on camera. At some point I’ll post a video of our conversation. I’m glad to have met him and Loretta. Inspiring people. A group is working at creating a full documentary on the building of Morning Song. They were funded through kickstarter and have a trailer for the film here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/morningsong/ken-minors-morning-song-the-film I wish them luck. It would be cool to see this story as a film.

From Santa Barbara we had a short sail over to Santa Cruz island. We dropped anchor at dusk, just as the moon rose over Anacapa island. It was the night before the full Super Moon, and the moon was massive and haunting, filtering through the various bands of color of dusk. Santa Cruz island is beautiful, barren, arid. The views from Smuggler’s cove are open, and we felt exposed, the winds died and the gentle swell was enough to keep us rolling about the time we were there. With no wind to keep us turned into the prevailing swell we would just bob back and forth. Occasionally a heavy swell would march through, tossing us from side to side, flipping plates or cups across the table, sending us lurching about, grasping for handholds, trying to balance whatever item was trying to escape what was once a level surface.

From Santa Cruz island our plan had been to sail for Ensenada, check in there and start exploring Mexico. But in the course of a routine inspection of the engine Douglas realized that we had a small fuel leak in our fuel injector pump - specifically in a delivery valve. That shifted our plans, we’d rather deal with something as complicated as a fuel pump here in California where shipping is easy and we have access to people we’ve worked with in the past. An hour after tying up Douglas was working the phones and tracked down a solid diesel engine mechanic nearby. Steve, the mechanic, has been really helpful and talked us through a few diagnostic tests we could work through ourselves.

We are pretty sure at this point that the O ring on one of the valves needs to be replaced. Steve is dropping by tomorrow with a set, and is going to show us how to replace them, and give us a set of rings to replace the others if that is a problem down the road. If all goes well we should be able to leave on Tuesday. We’ll see - our plans tend to take on a fuzzy edge when we are working on a project.

We hope to send out our next update from Mexico.

View from the anchorage at Cuyler Harbor

Cuyler Harbor, Santa Miguel Island

October 22, 2016 by tumbleweed@myiridium.net

Cuyler Harbor, Santa Miguel Island California

Cuyler Harbor, Santa Miguel Island

Currently anchored in Cuyler Harbor, off an island that feels remote and raw. There is a long sweeping white beach to the south that extends north to near our anchorage with a couple of breaks where the hillsides have collapsed to the sea and made smaller isolated beaches. In these spots are a couple of sea lion rookeries. In the rookery near us a couple dozen sea lions are basking in the sun, most of them covered in sand. They crawl up a steep sandy bank, roll around in the sand, slide down the hill and continue to use their flippers to awkwardly toss sand over themselves until they resemble sausages coated in panko batter, ready for the fryer.

Their honking, barking and at times even cooing can be heard all they way out into the bay where we are anchored. It isn't the frantic hostile honking and badgering we heard in Newport, it is more "conversational" and will drop off for an hour or two. Last night as we rocked gently in the swell their chatter and chortling carried clearly over the sea.

The island is arid and colored an array of browns, khakis, and deep greens with a few small patches of vivid green tucked up into small depressions in the hills, most likely where water has gathered. Otherwise, it appears to be completely dry and stark. Quite the contrast to the waters around the island that are home to a large variety of sea mammals including five species of pinnipeds. The island is protected by the national park and requires a permit to explore beyond the beach. According to our guidebook of the islands, Santa Miguel is covered with many archeological sites from pre-contact peoples, Spanish explorers, sealers, and fishermen. I believe many of the areas of the island require a park guide to visit but that could be old information.

We are anchored out enjoying the sun, the swell of the ocean keep us bobbing around. The surf has started to pick up and is now rolling along the beach, exploding into sea caves, and providing a dramatic soundtrack to the day.

Last night we dropped anchor around five after three days of sailing from Half Moon Bay. We seem to have developed a knack for gnarly weather and found ourselves at the tail edge of the weather pattern that much further north had hit the coasts of Oregon and Washington with winds of 80mph and heavy rains. We spent our first night out in heavy seas with winds in the mid-20's, gusting to the high 30's. It was a wild ride after spending a month dockside in Berkeley. Amazing how much we seem to "forget" when we are not constantly on the move. That first night had us bouncing all around the cabin when we were down below, and hanging tight when on watch in the cockpit. We had waves wash up over the cockpit coaming and douse us a few times. A rare experience. Our windvane, Sir Robin, was once again a champ and kept us on course, sliding down the waves, pausing to find the wind for a moment, resetting course, keeping us on track.

Though the ride was a bit rough, the moon was out, and the sky was incredibly clear and sharp - almost no moisture in the air. Shooting stars, the Milky Way, the strong light of the moon on the wave tops, made for a mesmerizing night. At the end of each watch when one of us would update the other and comment on what had gone on during their shift - it was mostly about how gorgeous it had been and how we had just stared into all that was unfolding around us. Also that there was no sign of mankind - no planes, no ships, no lights, no AIS targets, nothing on radar. It is such an odd feeling to be in a small boat, cruising along at 7-8 knots in an inky black sea, dashed with a few highlights of breaking waves, the sky bright with the moon and stars, but otherwise just trusting in the emptiness ahead.

As the sun set we had reefed the genoa down, gone through a double reefed main and traded that for the trys'l. We carried on the whole night with little sail but still making mostly 7 knots, often surfing to 8 or more. Thrilling.

The next day we saw the seas ease a small amount and the winds drop a few knots. We kept the trys'l up and unfurled the genoa a bit but kept bombing along. As the day progressed the seas started to line up a bit more and the secondary wave train that had been throwing us around so much the first night took it much easier on us, letting us get some sleep when off watch.

As we came in closer to shore yesterday the winds continued to drop until we were a couple hours north of the island the winds left us and we were forced to motor over a calm sea to our anchorage. A couple of hours out we watched one of the more incredible displays of life at sea, a massive school of dolphins, it seemed a hundred or more, racing along in a pack, many jumping high into the air - much higher than their body length, 8-10 feet, then plunging back into the water. They cruised by us at high speed, like a biker gang on a rampage, the surface of the sea frothing from their fins. We assumed their were hunting down an unlucky school of fish that had caught their attention. A rare experience.

The harbor was calm with a few knots of wind coming from west when we dropped anchor. As we went about putting Tumbleweed to bed the winds picked up and within a couple of hours we were seeing winds in the mid-teens. We were pretty exhausted from the trip down and after an early dinner struggled to keep awake. Douglas somehow managed to fall asleep on his feet while standing in the galley.

Another sailboat anchored shortly after we arrived, and a large motor yacht came in after dark. Two small fishing skiffs came in at sunset and anchored near shore. In such a massive bay it still felt very secluded and remote. This morning we woke to a dense fog, with visibility down to a handful of yards.

We spent the day reading about Mexico, and organizing Tumbleweed after the couple days at sea. Planning on spending another day here, then heading for Santa Cruz Island, and from there to Santa Barbara where we can pick up mail and take care of a couple of small projects - and make ready for Mexico.

Newport to Berkeley

September 22, 2016 by Morgan Henry

Newport to Berkeley, by way of Half Moon Bay

We are now docked at the Berkeley marina after one of the most amazing weeks of adventure that I can recall. The sail down from Newport was unlike any other experience I've taken part in. Exciting, beautiful, challenging - physically and mentally, it was living fully in an unfiltered manner. All focus and effort was on sailing, taking care of each other and minding the boat. All other functions became secondary.

Newport had been a great base and place to recharge after our trip from Barkley Sound. My folks and cousins came to visit and it was nice to relax and catch up with them. We were lucky to meet several other people that were heading south and shared a lot of valuable insight regarding the passage south, around Cape Blanco and Cape Mendocino. Mostly reinforcing how serious the passage is and how in adverse conditions the waters around Cape Mendocino can be a nightmare. We talked quite a bit with a delivery captain with 30 years of experience sailing the west coast and he recommended that we sail 120 miles or so offshore to get away from the canyon effect around Cape Mendecino. He was incredibly generous sharing his knowledge and notes on the changes in the sea conditions this year.

The weather this summer has been unusual, the extended high temperatures inland have caused a shift in the wind patterns along the coast. Watching the weather became an obsession as we watched for an extended pattern of northerly winds that would let us sail to San Francisco and instead kept seeing winds from the south, or dead calms that would force us to motor the whole 650 miles. We were determined to find a good weather window that would let us sail, and we became convinced that the best course was to head far offshore.

When the weather finally started to line up we set out under clear skies and soon caught the northerly winds we had been hoping would arrive. We had two full days of perfect winds and sailing with either the full genoa or the genoa reefed. It was a complete change from our trip from Barkley Sound. Each night the sky was clear and the stars came out to put on an entrancing show. The Milky Way sparkled and was as sharp as I've ever seen it. The seas were moderate and we were mostly on a sort of magic sleigh ride.

Key to the improved state was using our Monitor windave. We had been skeptical that the windvane could handle downwind, contrary seas. But after talking with friends in Newport, we had been convinced that the Monitor would be able to handle the sea conditions we were in and were surprised at how well it did. Now christened "Sir Robin" after sailing legend Knox-Johnson, the windvane completely changed the experience of being at sea for such an extended period. It would have been incredibly challenging to steer by hand for a week, I don't know that we could have pulled that off. The windvane is this brilliant device that has a vane that is set to the direction of wind we want to travel and through an elegant servo-pendulum system sends the directional message to a rudder in the water that converts the force of the water to energy, and through a few lines attached to the steering wheel, helm the boat. Hour after hour, day after day we'd watch in awe as Sir Robin tilted the helm one way then corrected the other.

After two days of blissful sailing we came to the edge of a gale that was hanging closer in near the shore but the effects could be felt further out. The seas became much more confused and the winds built from the mid - to high teens we had enjoyed, to the mid to high 20's with gusts into the high 30's. We furled the genoa and hoisted the try'sl and stays'l which gave us a great balance. Sir Robin had no problem keeping us on course and unlike our trip from Barkley sound we didn't experience the tendency to round up or forced down to an unwanted gybe. It was exhilarating sailing. The seas would rise up high behind the stern and we would hang for a moment on the wave's crest before surfing down the face. The majority of the waves slid past with little notice but we'd see the occasional large set that would come and take us for a wild run.

Below decks it was near impossible to move about. Without the horizon for input, and with the waves coming in odd sets, we'd find ourselves moving through the cabin and have a bulkhead or other surface coming rushing up at us. Every few minutes a large wave would hit us broadside, and it felt like Tumbleweed was punched by a giant fist, there would be a loud crashing sound, the boat would slew about for a few seconds, the cabin would tilt and dive about, then we'd settle and carry on.

We had been tracking a gale that was closer to shore off Cape Blanco, continuing past Cape Mendocino and including the waters to San Francisco Bay. The winds and seas began to build on day three and soon we had changed over our sails to a try’sl and staysail, with winds holding steady in the mid-20’s with gusts into the mid-30’s and a few times pegging 40kts. The skies remained clear and it was a pretty wild ride for the next few days. The wind vane managed the steering flawlessly with a the occasional correction. The notion of speed on a sailboat is an odd phenomenon, although we were topping out at speeds a bit over 7 knots (which works out to a little over 8mph) the rush of water, wind and movement of the boat keeps us convinced that we are racing along at wild speeds. It is hard to reconcile that the speeds were are so exhilarated by are probably what you’d hit on a slow coast with your bicycle. It probably has something to do with the inertia of a 30,000 pound boat and the visceral sense of movement that hits deep in one’ s core.

While at sea we were visited first, north of Cape Mendocino, by pods of Dall’s porpoises, and further south by several pods of dolphins. Both are such powerful animals, speed machines that loved to race up to the bow of Tumbleweed, arcing off to one side or another before rushing back and skimming just in front of us. On our last night at sea as we made for Half Moon Bay we had a few dolphins that stayed with us, on and off, for a few hours. After the moon had set the sea was depthlessly black, a void just outside the froth we kicked up of foam and bioluminescent flecks. Out of the inky darkness the dolphins would come streaming in, near the surface, kicking up a faint white line that would come curving at us from the stern, easily out pacing us, hugging the hull and making for the bow. The water would start to burst as small fish, perhaps sardines, or mackerel, would dance from the water. The dolphins were playing along side us, feasting on a school of small fish all perhaps attracted to the bioluminescence we kicked up as we skimmed along. Douglas and I each spent our watches drawn in by the scene around us, time passed quickly, and we struggled to express out loud how beautiful and singular the visits had been.

After a few days at sea we fell into a rhythm of trading off shifts, sleeping, checking weather, tending to Tumbleweed. Cooking was a challenge, the oven would sputter out, food would fly from pans, pans would pop out from the brackets on the stove top. Even fumbling with the most basic sort of cooking was frustrating. I had prepared several days worth of meals with the plan to just pop them into the oven to warm them up, and others to serve cold. Meals with as little effort as possible were by far the most popular. It also kept cleaning the galley to a minimum which gained a lot of points with the cleaning crew.

By sailing out to around 120 miles we were able to skirt around the edges of the worst weather and make our way to the south of it. Although the winds began to settle down the seas were still developed and it was a challenge to make progress eastward. Our most comfortable heading was pretty much due south - Next Stop the Galapagos! Became our rally cry. At some point on the sixth day the winds vanished and the seas mellowed into giant, long swells, like low rumbles from the north. Fog set in and we were forced to motor, but we could now make our way to the east and set course for Half Moon Bay. After a week at sea we were not ready to navigate San Francisco, work out the timing to get under the bridge and across the bar, etc.

Half Moon Bay has a protected, shallow anchorage just outside the marina and after a night under motor we dropped anchor around noon, put Tumbleweed to bed, had a massive lunch, and slept deeply the rest of the day. The next morning we woke energized and ready to move on. San Francisco is only 19 miles to the north and the weather was perfect for getting across the bar and under the Golden Gate. The harbor was packed with small fishing boats, including a couple small boats hauling nets of anchovies. There were also many pelicans, they are such an odd yet majestic bird, the seem so unlikely and prehistoric, flying in line formation like B52 bombers.

We set out in light fog and almost no wind, motoring most of the way north. As we approached the Golden Gate the winds picked up and we were able to sail under a full genoa under the bridge, it was thrilling to be hustling along with 15 knots of breeze, under the bridge and out into San Francisco Bay. My family has a lot of history in San Francisco, my grandfather and his family had lived there, my mother was born there, as a child we often visited the city, usually with our beloved cousin Martin in his massive Buick as our guide. My first experience sailing was around the bay on the sailboat of friends of the family - I was an infant in a hammock. I have been all over the city and have heard countless stories of the family with the city as a character. Grandpa Pegot rowing out into the bay to go fishing, my great aunt who ran a small hotel, the story of my grandparents meeting, the house where my mother was born. And our own stories - Golden Gate park will always be the place cousin Martin set us up with a picnic after several stops in the city to find just the right bread or cheese, to serve with the tomatoes from his garden. And of course driving the city with Martin, his talking and gesturing, pointing out the sites, barely paying attention to the drivers around him - more or less feeling his way around the city while telling us stories.

After such a trip at sea, and with so many profound memories of the city, it was an emotional passage those few hundred yards under the bridge. Then the bay opened up, a massive oil tanker was bearing down at high speed to port, two small sailboats were edging up to us on starboard and a wind surfer doing what looked like 40 knots was aimed straight at our bow. I went from bliss to near heart attack in moments. And the wind began to climb as we moved into the bay, going quickly from 15 knots to 20 and gusting to 30. We moved to put a put a reef in the genoa, scope out our path to Berkeley, dodge what seemed to be hundreds of vessels under sail. All the while feeling sort of awestruck that we were in the bay, under sail, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

On a small scale map the bay looks like a massive inland sea, edged with marinas, yacht clubs, small communities. It didn’t really get through to us that it is also frighteningly shallow until we were in the bay and looking at our large scale charts that show us more detail. The waters up to the Berkeley Marina drop down to 8 feet and less in some areas. Tumbleweed draws 6 feet and knowing that silt can build up and charts are not up to the minute, my adrenaline started to climb. The most shallow part of the marina we crossed left us with 2.4 feet under the keel.

As we sailed up to the transient dock and made a couple of slow turns in the fairway several boats came charging through under sail. I did my best to idle in place and let them slalom around us, at once impressed with their sailing skills and also a bit overwhelmed by all the boats tacking about the marina. We found the transient dock and as we turned into the fairway saw the boat of friends from Seattle, Douglas started to hail them and we were surprised when 10 or so people on another boat started to look our way and turned out to be all friends we knew from Seattle or had met along the way. They all jumped up and ran down the dock, directing us to a slip and grabbing our lines, a nice welcome to the city and a fine capstone to this leg of our adventure.

West Coast of Vancouver Island

August 31, 2016 by Morgan Henry

West Coast of Vancouver Island

August 1, 2016 Bligh Cove, Bligh Island, British Columbia

Note: this post is a out of chronological order, it was written at the beginning of August.

Douglas and I have spent a bit over a month working our way down the west coast of Vancouver Island since rounding Cape Scott on the Fourth of July. It's been an atypical summer for weather and we've spent a good deal of the time dodging gale force winds on the Pacific. The west coast of the island is pocked with numerous coves and long inlets that often cut deeply into the interior. Many of the inlets are carved between large hills or dormant volcanoes and along the occasional full mountain, giving us plenty of beautiful well protected places to anchor and wait out whatever nasty weather boiled away along the coast. The west side of the island has been an excellent and highly recommendable adventure. We've had a full range of sailing conditions, much of it off the coast in a variety of sea states. The area feels remote, and the few places we put into to have a couple of moments of "civilization" to refuel or pick up meager provisions, have felt like outposts more than anything to complicated or overly organized. There has been a decent amount of wildlife - daily visits by eagles mostly, but also strong numbers of sea otters in most coves and often bobbing a couple miles offshore, many whales and porpoises, but as yet no bears and only one night when we heard the call of the wolves. If there is one mark to make against the coast it is that the hand of man has been heavy with clear cutting and it is rare to find a place away from either the scars of clear cutting or the current activity of logging. The clear cutting even in what seem to be remote areas can appear brutal from the water - whole mountainsides shorn like the heads of collaborators in the days after WWll.

Below are excerpts from journal entries and observations on each of our stops around the island. Unlike last summer we have not been on the move nearly as much. We have found places we like and settled in for a few days. Often this was weather driven, but the entire distance from Cape Scott to Tofino is only 150 miles. Each day we move south also brings us closer to civilization, road access, float planes and sport fishing boats. We have been enjoying the solitude of the northern coast and not wanting to break the spell.

Our plans for the next leg of our trip are to sail to Barkeley Sound, do a little exploring and keep an eye on the weather. When we see a good window we'll move down along the coast to Newport, Oregon and meet up with my parents for a visit. From there we plan to sail to Berkeley, California and put in there for a few boat projects during September and the early part of October. By late October we plan to be in San Diego and getting ready to sail to Mexico for the winter.

From my last posting in Port Hardy we were trying to sort out problems with the windlass. The ill cast gypsy never really worked, it gave a place for the chain to land and be guided by hand into the chain locker and also could be used to guide the chain during deployment when run freely. But any type of controlled operation with the windlass was out of the question. We've spent the summer anchoring by deploying and retrieving the chain mostly by hand, and using the rope wildcat and a sort of leap frog system using two snubbers and chain hooks to pull up the last bit of chain and the anchor. It's tedious, but Douglas has adopted an approach of looking at it as his daily lifting exercise and turned it into something positive. It will be nice to resolve the problem in California but we've figured out a few tricks and are making it work.

From Port Hardy we anchored in Bull Harbor, a classic anchorage for those wanting to sail around Cape Scott. It is pretty shallow and snug, though well protected from the weather out on the Nahwitti Bar and the north end of the island. The weather piped up while where there and we spent several days there watching as wave after wave of other boats would stay a night then head out into what sounded like chaos from radio reports and updates from the area weather stations. There was another sailboat in the harbor with us and we kept sharing information on the weather and wondering at the bravery or craziness of those that kept heading out into what sounded like nasty conditions. The Nahwitti bar is one of the more fearsome bodies of water in the entire pacific northwest. To cross the bar there when prevailing winds are running against an ebbing tide is to take on high stacked and confused seas, a couple miles of real terror in my mind. We left on a calm morning with light winds, crossing the bar on a slack ebb with light winds against us and the seas were still pretty steep and made for an energetic passage than kept us on our toes. We kept the main up and motor sailed through the waves, we didn't have enough wind to sail but the main helped to balance the boat and we had a controlled trip over the bar.

The trip over the bar and around the island, through the Scott channel stands out as one of the best days on the water of the trip. After crossing the bar the winds picked up and we were able to sail around the tip of the island and toward Scott channel. We wanted to time our crossing of the channel with an afternoon slack tide around Cape Scott and so sailed NW of the island for a couple of hours under full sun and a light breeze. A beautiful and rewarding day after spending so many days in the rain of Bull Harbor and helped us shake off the frustration we'd built up from dealing with the windlass. Rounding Cape Scott in the afternoon under all sails, through confused seas and winds that changed directions was great fun and made us feel like we were jumping fully into the adventure of summer. We rounded Cape Scott on the Fourth of July and dropped anchor late in the day at San Josef Bay.

San Josef Bay was a good place to spend a quiet night. The bay is completely open to the ocean and though there is a bar to cross that does cut down on the swell, I would not recommend it for nights with bad weather. The swell was light but with no wind Tumbleweed tends to present his beam to the waves and so we had some excitement throughout the night whenever a larger set of swells made their way to us. The anchorage is beautiful, we were tucked behind a small spur of land and had a view of a wide sandy beach. If the swell was not an issue it would be a fine place to explore by kayak. But we were up early and moving on to calmer waters the next day.

July 6, 2016 Klaskish Basin, BC

We pulled out of beautiful though open and very rolly San Josef Bay late in the morning yesterday. The waters and wind were flat calm and we hoped for the winds to build later in the morning and afternoon. It was not to be, we had sails up for a few minutes, then tried just motor sailing, but not enough wind for that. The main kept flogging and slatting around. But even under motor with the Westerbeke chugging away, it was a gorgeous ride which would have been perfection under sail. The coastline is rugged, and there were no signs of people on the island and only a few fishing boats, mostly distant, at sea. Chatter on the VHF was low, small groups of birds here and there skimmed the water, occasionally we watched as a large salmon would surface to slap its belly against the water. It was a day over a constant, gentle swell that nudged us south.

The revelation of the day was realizing that from this point forward over the next few years, if all continues to plan, our mantra will be "keep the Pacific on your right", from here we intend to go south along the coast of Vancouver Island, to Washington, past Oregon, hold up in California, winter in Mexico and then move along to the islands of the south pacific and on around, always at the edge or sliding across the the Pacific. Kind of an epic and humbling moment to chew on. We have been so focused over the past year to get up and around to the west side of the island that to be here, wandering down the coast is taking a bit to sink in.

A small bit of water up from the sea, we wound our way through a handful of islets yesterday afternoon with full sun and the most gentle of swells. Each swell lifted us up and gave us a gentle nudge forward and it felt as though we were drifting in from the pacific, into Brooks Bay and up through Klaskish inlet. Once we passed the small islets standing guard to the upper waters, all became calm, what little wind and swell we'd felt dropped away and we chugged away under motor winding our way past areas that were unspoiled. A bit further in we heard a tremendous blast of dynamite and looked up to the hillside to see a massive cloud of dust, a logging company blasting a road into the mountain. As we continued in we could see where recent clearcutting had scalped giant swaths from the mountains and felt disheartened for a bit.

Soon we turned into a narrow channel of stone where old growth evergreens twisted and clung to the rocks, reaching to the waters where they were uniformly and neatly clipped by the saltwater. It was closed in and for a couple of moments our view was a narrow band of sky above and a small glimpse of the basin forward. A magic spot that felt ancient and wonderful.

The basin proper revealed a winding logging road and more clearcutting in the distance but in all other directions was quiet and removed from the rest of the world. No other vessels or sounds, the waters perfectly still and protected but small hills all around. After spending the night on the swells in Bull Harbor this felt like just the place.

We went about setting anchor with our new methods that reduce or bypass the gypsy. On our first two attempts we weren't ab le to get a good set, we would drag pretty easily when I put moderate RPMs to it. On our third try we moved up closer to the head of the basin where it was a little shallower and probably has a more muddy bottom. We set really well there, and had Tumbleweed tidied up and all put away by 19:00.

July 13, 2016

Columbia Cove, Vancouver Island, BC

Klaskish Basin to Columbia Cove

We've been at Columbia Cove for a few days now. We've arrived on a sunny, summer-perfect afternoon after a great sail from Klaskish Basin and have been through rain storms, mist, dead calms and another day of sun. Today we are in another overcast haze that can't decide weather to start raining on us or to clear up and behave like a proper summer day.

Our trip from Klaskish Basin was uneventful. We set out in the late morning with only a knot or two of wind back in the excellent protection of the basin. We motored through the quiet waters past the small logging operation that was in the process of loading a massive barge of logs to be hauled out to sea, maybe up to Coal Harbor? We picked up a few knots of wind as we motored out into the swell of Klaskish Bay and raised all sails for a half hour, then the wind left us and we dropped to the main to try to motor sail but the rolling of the sea and the light winds combined to cause the main to just slat and jog back and forth. We dropped the main and motored on for another hour before we picked up enough wind to give sailing a try again. By then the winds were on our aft quarter and we were able to sail under full genoa alone. We had a great afternoon moving along at 6 knots with little effort, the big gentle swells of the pacific giving us a nice push with each set of waves. We came into Checleset Bay in mid afternoon and lost the wind again not too far from the entry to Columbia Cove. We motored the last bit into the cove and dropped anchor in just 11 feet of water at mid tide. I checked the depths and tides a few times to confirm all was going to be ok. After last summer dropping anchor in such great depths it is taking a while to get comfortable with something less that 20 feet at low tide. At low tide here we had 6 feet under the keel. Giving us plenty of scope with a great angle.

Columbia Cove is a great anchorage, part of a Provincial Park, surrounded by beautiful, unlogged forests and little islets. The cove is actually in a small channel that goes around a little islet. It rapidly shallows out to the north and there is a long mudflat at low tide. Our first day here we quickly pumped up our dinghy and went ashore. We saw fresh bear prints in the mud causing some excitement with the crew. We had the first really sunny day we've had in a long time and that afternoon had towels and clothing hanging out on our lifelines and all the lockers open to circulate dry air. The next day we had heavy rains and stayed aboard, hiding below deck, reading and taking care of small tasks.

Yesterday we again had a beautiful day and walked across the small peninsula, through the forest, where we saw bear prints in the mud on the trail and made as much noise as we could. After 20 minutes our so we came to the beach "Shed 4" - a long, soft, sandy beach that sweeps along the eastern edge of Brooks peninsula out to a set of other beaches that work their way up the south eastern edge of the peninsula. It is a raw and rugged beach, open to the pacific it has a lot of floats from nets and some fishing gear but otherwise is very clean. We walked barefoot in the sand, had a picnic on a massive log washed ashore, wandered the tidal pools taking pictures. While we walked the beach I heard the sound of a engine, thinking it was a small plane coming over the island I was surprised when a high end helicopter lifted up slowly from behind the rocks on the beach I was heading toward and made a slow buzz down the beach, its nose tilted forward at 45 degrees and the passengers staring out, not returning my half hearted wave. A weird sight.

Crouching and moving through the tide pools tweaked out my left knee and after a couple weeks of healing and finally feeling so much better, my knee is in pain again, the walk back I kept getting jolts of pain and had a rough night's sleep, no matter the angle my knee seems to drift back into pain after a few minutes.

There are a couple of boats in the bay with us today and there were a couple of boats yesterday. All sailboats and much more of an intrepid type of character than we are used to seeing except for up in Alaska. This is really a wilder place to travel and people tend to fall more into the "cruiser" category with boats set up with solar panels, wind generators, cans of diesel and water lashed to their shrouds.

We are pretty happy being here for a few more days. A weather system with gale strength winds is coming through and this is a great spot to sit tight through that. Then we'll head for the Bunsby Islands to a little nook there and maybe some kayaking if my knee is feeling better. Then Walter's cove to resupply and maybe explore some of Kyuquot Sound. We want to sail offshore over night before we get to Tofino, and we want to be in Tofino August 10th so we can resupply and be ready for a weather system opening to head to California. Time is moving too fast, I want to spend so much more time here and I'm already having to keep an eye on moving on. I can see how people come up here year after year for decades to explore, it is really amazing up here. So remote and unspoiled with so few boaters and of those they are interesting hardy folks.

July 14, 2016 Clanninick Cove, BC

From our anchorage at Columbia Basin we had an excellent day of sailing to Clanninick Cove. Big seas, winds in the low 20 knots gusting to 30 knots, big waves to surf down. A good, thrilling run down the coast. Happy to drop anchor in Clanninick Cove which was well protected and calm after the day's excitement. Coming into the cove we ran past a gauntlet of sport fishermen in small boats riding the big waves in Brown Channel. We had a boisterous entry - tossed up and down on the waves, flying along under sail, I imagine the roller coaster effect in the small boats must have been a thrill.

We had a calm night in Clanninick and went in to Walter's cove to check out the town. We had hoped to buy a few vegetables and top off our fuel tanks but it was crowded and the public dock was lined with sport boats. We idled around the inner harbor for a while trying to sort out a good landing spot but the boats along the dock were small and I don't think would have appreciated a 30,000 pound sailboat tying up alongside. The cove is scenic, the entry winds through many rock outcroppings, islets, tiny nooks and coves into the larger cove with the community. I'd have liked to spent a day exploring but it wasn't going to work out so we motored out and made for Dixie Cove.

July 15, 2016 Dixie Cove, Hohoae island, British Columbia

Dixie cove is two small coves in the south side of Hohoae Island, a marine park. Straighforward entry and anchorage, really well protected. The inner, more intimate anchorage was full, there were five boats in there the night we arrived. We anchored in the larger outer cove, with a large motor yacht. The first night the cove was filled with many of the sailboats we had met along the way, a couple from one anchorage, a couple from another. It was nice to see them and wave as the left the next day or toured in their dinghy. The crew of d'Aguila had us over for dinner the second night we were there. We had a great time staying up late, talking and enjoying their company. After dinner we rowed from their boat in the inner cove to where Tumbleweed was anchored in the outer cove, the water was still as a pond and the starts reflecting against the calm water was awe inspiring. It was a form of magic to row across the perfect black mirror of the water with the stars reflected and gently shimmering away in our wake.

Being a marine park the two coves are pretty raw and there are no facilities that we could see, and though we rowed around both coves we could not find a place to put ashore, the undergrowth was dense and the shore mostly steep to or if there was a small break in the granite, it was small and rocky.

July 18, 2016 Rugged Point, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

A favorite anchorage of the west coast. We anchored a few hundred feet off a wide sandy beach and made many trips ashore. It was a short walk through dense forest to the other side of the peninsula, putting us on the Pacific ocean. The beach on the Pacific side was also fine sand and had numerous islets and interesting rock formations. The path took us through a dense underbrush of huckleberry, salal, cedar, spruce, on a path the forest service had built through the bog and over the small creeks. It was wonderfully primal and closed us off from the outside world completely for the short walk from the protected side of the beach that faced Kyuquot Sound to the wilder side that opened onto the Pacific.

The beaches are perfect for landing kayaks and there is a small shelter tucked into the forest for camping, I think this would be a primo destination for kayaking and camping out. The anchorage is just fine for settled weather but I would not feel comfortable here in rough weather, particularly from the north.

July 20, 2016 Rosa Harbor, Rosa Island, British Columbia

Excellent anchorage tucked up into protected waters on the west side of small Rosa Island and protected to the west by Nootka Island. Front row for the sport fishing crowd in Esperanza inlet, from sun up the inlet was busy with small sport fishing boats working their way out to the mouth of the inlet and then trolling back up into the inlet for salmon. Few strayed near where we were anchored but we could see them crossing back and forth all day. There is a wide beach giving access to a sheltered camping spot in the trees on the shore from the anchorage, a spot favored by kayakers. Each night they would build up a good fire and the scent would drift out to where we were anchored adding a rich layer to the experience. It was a sort of quintessential, perfect spot. Roaring fire ashore, big views to the surrounding hills, seals and sea lions prowling for salmon, sport fishermen prowling for salmon, several bald eagles prowling for anything they could sink their talons into. A good spot to hang out.

We also checked out Queen Cove on the other side of Esperanza but it is fairly populated with a couple of resorts or busy summer homes. It would be more protected in a blow but the trade off would be a closed in cove surrounded by houses and float planes coming and going.

July 21, 2016 Tahsis, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Civilization at last! Well, at least a minor outpost of civilization. We were down to our last few withered carrots, sprouting onions and potatoes. It had been six weeks since we topped off our propane tank and that is about our usual limit. The marina caters to the large sportfishing crowd and feels like a bustling summer camp for grown ups who want to spend as many hours as possible in a small boat, bobbing offshore in search of salmon. Then come back to camp, clean their fish, have a few beers and tell stories of the day's adventures. Repeat all summer if possible. The marina gets high marks for being run well, it's an organized place with a few supplies, a well run fuel dock, small restaurant and bait shop. I got the feeling that the marina and fishing crowd float the town along for the rest of the year. Tahsis used to be the sight of a lumber mill but it was removed some years ago, picked up and scraped off the earth, dragged somewhere else. The mill's parting gift to the town is a fenced in patch of broken concrete, a parking lot, and the odd bit of rusting metal, all sitting on prime waterfront property in some of the most majestic land on the island. A resort is bound to follow. With the mill gone most houses were sold off and businesses closed or downsized. There is a small grocery/liquor store that gets produce delivered every few days. We arrived the day before new produce so we had slim pickings to resupply with - a bag of carrots, some cherries, several cucumbers and a box of blueberries. One part of me struggled to not think about the wild bounty at the farmer's market in Ballard, the other part of me wallowed in self pity. But we had a bag of produce which was far better than the beginning of the day. There is a small hardware store and they run a dialed in propane service so that was easy to organize. The marina has a couple of trucks they let visitors to the marina borrow to run to the store. They just handed over the keys and gave directions to the store. A nice side to small community living for sure. The owners of the marina and the staff were all friendly and eager to lend a hand. High marks.

July 24, 2016, Mary Basin, Nootka Island, British Columbia

We spent a week in Mary Basin as a high pressure system settled off the coast and created a period of high winds. Each day we checked in to find winds in the 30 to mid-40 knot range blowing off the coast. In Mary Basin we seldom saw wind worth reporting, only on our last day did the winds pick up and push us around the anchorage. For the majority of the week we were completed protected in relatively shallow water with almost no fetch from the prevailing winds. The basin is large and well protected from the ocean by a bar that runs well inside the mouth and a line of islets. The islets were great to explore by kayak. Protected from all but a small sea swell it was like roaming around little rock grottoes - hanging ferns, gnarled small pine trees, roots, berries, shrubs, the occasional small spot to land a kayak, mostly granite walls steep to. The north end of the basin is one long sweep of beach, sandy near the mouth of the bay and changing to rocks deeper in the basin. Near our anchorage, tucked far into the basin, a small stream ran down from a waterfall, through a narrow deep channel and over a drying flat, where the water was only a few feet deep at high tide and revealed a large muddy shore at low tide. It was an excellent place to explore by kayak and we saw only one other boat anchor there that week. Far to the north, hidden behind a small islet, a sailboat. A couple of kayak groups made camp on the sandy beach near the mouth of the basin and some paddled into the inner basin to explore, but for the most part it was us and the wildlife, mostly sea otters, which were countless. The weather really cleared up in Mary Basin and we were able to open up Tumbleweed and get our first long good wave of sun to dry us out.

August 1, 2016 Bligh Cove, Bligh Island Marine Park, British Columbia

We had a good sail up Esperanza Inlet to Tahsis where we took on more diesel and made a trip to the grocery - this time they had produce and we were able to stock up on a few more things. Then we sailed down Tahsis inlet until losing the wind at the end of the day and motoring to Hisnit Inlet. Coming out of Tahsis Inlet we counted 110 small fishing boats all trolling slowly along the banks of the channel or in the small coves. It was 8pm and we expected light for another hour, I think they planned to fish until it was black out. We anchored late and left the next morning. Hisnit Inlet was well protected and easy to enter, a good spot to hide out from bad weather, but there is road access and there were several campers on the shore and several sport fishermen coming and going - a taste of civilization after being so spoiled by the areas to the north. We had light winds in the morning and made our way slowly under sail to Bligh Island.

Bligh Island has been a favorite spot. Oddly there has been very little boat traffic here, we keep expecting a few boats to arrive but for some reason it is very quiet and not on the main route. Further north we seemed to see the same group of boats at each anchorage and shared places with at least a boat or two most nights. Princess 2, a Nauticat owned by Franz and Merial who we met in Tahsis, anchored near us a couple nights ago and had us over for dessert. They are Canadians and done a fair amount of sailing, it was nice to stay up late talking about sailing and our various adventures.

Bligh Cove has a hidden camp spot on the shore, just off the water under a canopy of old growth. Once past the low hanging branches the forest is open, this area has not been logged and the old growth trees stake out large areas of territory with few smaller trees making their way. Massive trees that have fallen here and there are slowly returning to earth and supporting small trees and plants. We hiked up through the forest following a creek bed and scrambling over rocks and fallen trees to the top of the island where there is a small lake. We walked the part of the perimeter of the lake but could not find access to the shore. We settled for a view spot up the side of a hill and had a small picnic chasing away a few mosquitos. A really cool feature of this anchorage. So many of the anchorages in the north are beautiful but difficult to explore, the forests are usually incredibly dense and the few times we have tried to make our way through forest we have found bear sign and quickly made our way back to Tumbleweed.

August 7, 2016 Hoot la Kootla, Flores Island

About 25 miles north of Tofino, Hoot la Kootla is a small cove across Sydney Inlet from the heavily visited Hot Springs Park. Float planes and high speed tour boats roared in and out of the heavy fog to the hot springs but Hoot la Kootla was calm and serene with a beautiful beach and small islets of shear rock capped with small pine trees. We stayed there on a calm night, it is open to the swell of the Pacific and I don’ think would be comfortable or safe in a blow. But it was a quick place to dodge into after a day on the sea and would be a nice spot to base from to visit the hot springs.

August 9, 2016 Ucluelet, BC

Our last dose of civilization had been Fort Hardy at the end of June, Ucluelet was a welcome stop with an excellent grocery store, top notch bakery and other assorted cool things a good sized town has to offer. We went back and forth on whether to go to Ucluelet or Tofino for resupply. We were glad to have opted for Ucluelet, it’s a laid back town with all the amenities we needed. The marina was full so we anchored out and were glad to have done so. The marina is small and full with commercial fishing boats, we would have had to have rafted up. The commute from the harbor was short and it was quiet and well sheltered. It is an easy place to get into, the harbor is well marked and the entry in from the sea is well marked as well. I could see where it could be a wild ride coming into town in rough weather, however. The islets at the mouth of the inlet are raw and wild looking and don’t seem nearly far enough away. But in settled weather such as we had it was well marked and easy to track.

August 11, 2016 Effingham Bay, Barkley Sound, BC

Our last stop on Vancouver Island. I had been wanting to visit Barkley Sound since our friends Leslee and Chris toured there by sea kayak. They described a place that sounded mythical, calm waters, islands easy to paddle to, lovely beaches. It is also probably the moved beloved spot on the island and I figured it would be packed with other boaters and sightseers. It was as beautiful and perfect as Leslee and Chris described, I can see how one could get lost for weeks wandering the various islands and beaches. Once past the outer breakers the waters settled down to near pond like conditions and though we anchored at one of the more popular spots we saw few other boats, the occasional sailboat drifted off in the distance and a couple of boats dropped anchor near us, but mostly it felt spacious and lightly visited. We kayaked around the bay and out into the sound, and lucked out with sunny weather. Effingham Bay is pretty large and can accommodate quite a few boats. In settled weather there are quite a few other anchorages that are hidden among the islands and I look forward to getting back to the area to explore them.

Barkley Sound to Newport

August 21, 2016 by Morgan Henry

Barkley Sound to Newport
N 44º37.435 W 124º03.131

We are now quietly tied up in Newport Oregon following a wild couple of nights at sea and an exhilarating sail down from Barkley Sound. We had more wind and sea than expected, and the sailing was challenging, keeping us on our toes and steering by hand for much of the trip. We traded off on watches every hour or two, taking small naps between our times at the wheel and kept going mostly on adrenaline. After tying up last night, tidying up the boat and having pizza for dinner, we slept deeply.

Leaving Barkley Sound late Saturday morning, we motored slowly out of the Broken Island group under beautiful blue skies, a few high clouds, and a 3/4 moon on the rise. It seemed like an ideal set up for a beautiful trip at sea. Out of the islands the wind grew steadily and soon we were making 7 knots over ground, surfing to 9 knots, with all sails up. I had my camera out and rolled a little video, thinking I would document the trip.

After a couple of hours of this Douglas went to do an inspection of the engine and systems and reported back with alarm that we had a steady flow of water coming into our bilge, about the amount of a household faucet running near open. He started pulling gear out of the lazarette - a spool of crab line, dinghy oars, spare water, buckets. We hailed the coast guard to let them know that we were dealing with a situation and kept them posted as we searched for the cause. The winds and seas began to build and we stopped our search for the leak to reef the main and furl the genoa. Eventually we tracked the source to a leak in our stern anchor well. We were heeled pretty far over and water was coming up through the anchor locker drain and through a a seam in the wall of the locker, and draining into the bilge. Once we had reduced sail and our angle of heel the water stopped. We signed off with the coast guard and made our way due south.

Our next task was to engage our self steering system. We have a hydraulic auto-helm that we have used occasionally, but we prefer hand steering in the NW, there is so much traffic and logs in the water we seldom use the auto helm. Beneath the cockpit are two heavy duty hydraulic arms that can control the steering when set to a compass heading. After the drama with the water and dealing with all the gear and reefing sails we thought it would be a good time to engage the auto helm and set a course for it to steer as the night approached. I was at the helm, and Douglas turned on the system at set a course, engaging the trusty Alpha 3000. As soon as the auto helm was engaged it grabbed the wheel and instead of settling on the compass heading as set, which it had always done in the past, it began a quick and steady turn of direction directly to a heading that would set us on a crash gybe. As we heading for a stall out and the boat began to swing far past our heading I wrestling with the wheel and shouted for Douglas to shut the damn thing off. Somewhere in there I wrenched my back, I am no match for the hydraulic arms. We avoided the crash gybe but the close call made us lose faith in the auto helm until we could find calmer waters to set it. We continued to hand steer through the night.

It was our first all night passage on the open ocean. The seas continued to build and we started to see winds gusting to 34 knots, with winds in the high 20’s. Fog set in and obscured Vancouver island and the horizon in all directions. The wave sets became confused with wind waves and sea swell coming from slightly different directions. It was the beginning of an adventurous and slightly chaotic night at sea. Quite a different introduction to overnight sailing than either of us had envisioned but that we soon accepted as the way the trip south was going to go. We had sailed a handful of times in the open ocean off the coast of Vancouver and on our way to Alaska last year, and we had some experience sailing in the ocean around the British Virgin Islands, but those times the seas were ordered and we had large swell to ride through. This was an entirely different experience. Large seas, breaking at the crest, that would crash past us and be followed by a smaller wave from a slightly different angle, each pushing us in a slightly different direction, keeping us slaloming down the waves only to reset our angle for the next set. If we headed too low we risked a crash gybe, if we let the helm point up we’d quickly gain speed and the bow would race into the wind. We spent the night finessing the angle to head south for Newport while finding a sweet spot between a crash gybe and riding into the wind.

We had planned on a 3 hour watch system, but as the night wore on, we each tired after an hour an half at the wheel. We had set up a cocoon below, converting one of the settees to a sea berth, lining one side of the settee with bags of clothes and piling on a thick stack of soft blankets. After a couple of hours at the wheel and attending to tasks on deck we took turns diving into the bliss of deep sleep, wrapped in blankets, padding against the crashing and diving of Tumbleweed as we made our way through the night. The sounds of the hull being slammed by the seas, the wrenching of the mast and shrouds, pans and various bins of tools and parts rattling and crashing. Not a lullaby but neither of us seemed to mind. When we had our time off watch we fell into a deep but short sleep.

Night sailing far out at sea was so different than any experience I’d had sailing in the dark. There were no lights, no channel markers, no other vessels, the clouds had set in and hid the moon and stars and kept the sea a black void except where waves washed against the hull. On deck it was exhilarating and nerve wracking, at the helm I was completely focused and any distraction caused me to fall off course. There were no points of reference other than the wind, it was a game of sailing by feel, I think each of us got to the point where we reached a zen state of balance with Tumbleweed. When the sun finally rose it was above a blanket of clouds and the light rose slowly, going from a dim twilight to an eerie glow until the sea, horizon, and sky above were a multitude of shades of grey.

I was glad to have prepared meals for the trip in advance. Warming things in the oven or getting a bowl of salad together was about the most I was capable of, or interested in, organizing. Comfort food ruled the day - emmer salad, grated carrot/cabbage salad, potatoes rewarmed in the oven, soups. Lucille Ball’s “The Long, Long Trailer” is a good reference point for cooking below for much of the journey. Oven door opens, trays slide out, a bowl on the counter slides left to right as you begin to pour into it. For the next round I’m planning on individual servings packaged in foil that are warmed in the oven, then served from the foil and hence directly to the trash. I think I’ve made 4 casseroles in my life so I’m moving into new territory.

Approaching Newport the fog began to set in and we crossed the bar of the Yaquina river in heavy fog. It was at low slack tide, the seas were rough but there were no restrictions on crossing. I kept us angled pretty high to weather in the channel, the southern jetty was to our lee and no place to visit, all crashing waves and large boulders. In the fog we worked in from the outer buoy, lining up the green buoys with the channel. We later learned that the night before a sailboat coming in late had run aground, most likely they had not lined up the breakwaters. The gods were with them and they made it to the beach, running up on the rocks here would be a nightmare.

Once past the breakwaters the sea settled down and the winds calmed. Newport was a welcome marina, easy to dock and maneuver. A kind couple waited for us as we made our way to the dock, taking our lines. A couple slips down we saw Essencia, our friends Kim and Claudia from Port Townsend had arrived a few hours before us. A great welcome.

We’ve had a good week in Newport. My parents came to visit us and we took a few down days to wander the local beaches with them. A crowd of boats arrived around the same time as we did, most coming from Neah Bay. Most of the boats are heading south to Mexico as we are and there was a wealth of knowledge and exchanged information on the dock. A friendly, generous crowd sharing notes on weather, observations from their passages, plans on traveling south.

The next big adventure is rounding Cape Mendocino, it looks like it can be a gnarly body of water under the wrong conditions. We’ll be spending the next couple of days prepping for the next leg of the adventure, researching weather, studying our options. We plan on leaving with the next good weather window, heading out 100 or so miles to get beyond the “canyons” at Cape Mendocino, and make for San Francisco.

Douglas coming ashore in Port Alexander, BC

Ports Alexander & Hardy

June 29, 2016 by Morgan Henry

Port Alexander

June 26, 2016

Sailing is a multi-tentacled pursuit. Romantically inclined think of it as billowing sails, galloping along the seas off Barbados, maybe a dolphin or two playing in the wake from the bow (admittedly, the inner visual I hold dear and that gets me through random weeks of anchor repairs). The notion that sailing is really about "sailing", handling lines, managing sails, navigating your vessel with an assured finesse. And it can certainly be that, particularly if you are day sailing or have a vessel that is kept very simple.

When we first got into sailing I somehow glossed over the conversations and articles regarding the other elements of sailing. Particularly when it came to boat repairs and maintenance I thought the cliche' of cruising being mostly "repairing your boat in exotic harbors" sort of quaint. Even after the cold splash of reality last year, six weeks working on Tumbleweed in Sitka, I still kept a healthy disconnection from reality. That was just a one off, rarely happening type of thing. Anchored at the north end of Vancouver Island, entering our fifth week of trying to resolve our broken windlass gypsey, I'm starting to embrace the-constant-repair-and-upkeep-of-a-sailing-vessel as a solid core component of cruising.

When we meet with other cruisers the early lines of conversation tend to curve around to the things we have all fixed, replaced or are accepting "as is" for this part of our trip. There is often an edge of gallows humor about the whole thing, embracing the pain of recalling when a line wrapped around the boats prop forcing a quick jump into 40 degree water with a kitchen knife. How they ran into an uncharted rock and lost a stabilizer and limped back from Alaska. They lost their engine and returned to port using their dinghy outboard. Many water pumps failing. A transmission failure on a boat we met in Nanaimo, they sailed back to Anacortes, replaced the transmission and caught up to us in Port McNeill (gleefully recalling coming into the marina in Anacortes under sail and having to dock under sail at night).

If sailing is some multi-tentacled pursuit and we're at the white board scrawling out Venn diagrams we'll have to make a wheel for patience. Sailing is loaded with opportunities to slow your heart rate, focus on your breathing, gaze off to the horizon, center yourself, and think calming thoughts. Usually in a healthy way, as in to be present in the beauty of an experience, often as a technique to keep yourself from unraveling.

Traveling by sailboat there is a certainly a preoccupation with what can go wrong, what has gone wrong and what needs to be repaired. We started out this past winter with a list of something around 140 projects we wanted to complete before we left Port Townsend. And we plowed through them. I mentally dusted off my hands and thought we were at a point of completion, for at least a summer of sailing. Anchored in this beautiful bay at the end of the fourth week of trying to repair our anchor windlass I have fixated on the fragile nature of sailboat systems.

It is the sound of the loon that pulls me out of that frame of mind. Several times a day a loon calls from somewhere at the edge of the forest. It is such a gorgeous cry, but what makes it haunting is how rare it calls. Once or twice in the morning, another call in the late afternoon, maybe once as the sun begins to fade. It is the unexpected timing of its call that gives it power, and reinforces the silence of the bay. After the loon calls the bay seems to become hushed for awhile and the place stills.

Last night, deep in the few hours of darkness we are getting at this latitude, I woke to the howling of several wolves. I sat up and listened to them call to each other for a few minutes before their calls faded away and the cove was quiet again. But I was awake and had time to think, to turn over in my mind not the problem with the broken gypsy or the month of time we have spent in limbo trying to sort out repairs, but instead time to be focused on what a magic place we have found ourselves, bobbing about in a sailboat in a cove at the far north of Vancouver Island. To have found space on this planet where we can embrace quiet and solitude. Our view from the head of the bay is down a long body of water with two small islets with Vancouver Island in the background. There are no lights of civilization, seldom the sound of a plane overhead, and about as rare are vessels off in the distance as they make way along the coast of the island.

There is not a linear equation to finding a place like this, and often the physical place can be found but the inner space needed for a solid connection is missing. We have spent several days here instead of the overnight stop we had planned. By pushing on and making our way around Cape Scott we would have missed out on so much that makes this a special place. When traveling by sail I find that we often spend the day focused on the physical act of sailing the boat and navigating safely, we'll anchor typically late in the day, sort out putting the boat to bed, and work out the plan for the next day and deal with assorted boat chores - run the water maker, fix meals, etc. And although we are always receptive to appreciating a place we don't always get to embrace it as fully as when we are in a place for days, such as here. I love the calm of places like this and the space to think and to slow down.

The people we continue to meet along the way has also been a rich part of the experience. We have connected with people that we know from Port Townsend, others that we have met briefly earlier this year and now hail as long lost friends, and we have bumped into people that after a few minutes chatting invited us over for conversation, gave us large fillets of salmon, fishing lures, and sourdough starter.

There are these dimensions to traveling under sail, slowly poking along, sometimes taking a few steps back or sideways or meandering in circles, that make this mode of travel magic. The great days on the water with all our sails up, the people that we meet, and conversely the solitude of remote waters, are experiences that go to the core of my sense of being human.

We had good news yesterday from the maker of our windlass. They have cast a new gypsy and shipped it out in the day's FedEx. Depending on Canadian customs we should have the part Monday, perhaps Tuesday. Tomorrow we'll sail back to Port Hardy and wait on the part. That will give us a couple of days to restock some provisions, maybe make a laundry run, embrace the "chaos" of civilization.

If all goes well we'll head around to the west side of the island next week.

Port Hardy

June 29, 2016

Update: We are in Port Hardy now. The part arrived yesterday. It was cast marginally better than the previous gypsy but still locks up on retrieval and causes the links to skip and fly on deployment. I think we are pretty much over working with the manufacturer on a solution. We have a couple of work arounds - manual, hauling up the chain and anchor (tried that out yesterday and that's a good workout!) or working with the "wildcat" on the other side of the windlass, that's a smooth drum used to retrieve our rope anchor rode. We can use that to run a snubber line to the chain rode and haul it in. Tedious and slow but safe and not too much effort. We'll use some combination of those and move on. We are going to provision in Port Hardy today and move north tomorrow.

This morning "Bad Kitty" one of the boats racing in the Race 2 Alaska (R2AK) was tied up at the end of our dock. They broke their rudder a few miles out last night and limped into port around midnight, their race is over. It is a tricked out, racing catamaran with a crew of 4 seriously experienced guys and they were in the running for the money. Breakdowns and repairs seem to come with the territory, even with the pros.

Port Hardy is a good stop for provisioning and taking care of a few tasks. But feeling ready to move on and get over to the wild side.

Alert Bay

June 08, 2016 by Morgan Henry

We took a field trip over to Alert Bay, a small 'Namgis First Nations village a short ferry ride from Port McNeill. The sun was out, plants were in full bloom, lots of people out strolling and friendly. The downtown is a mix of older buildings that are abandoned and fading away, and a few buildings that have been fixed up. There is a new walkway along the waterfront with benches to take in the view. A highlight of the village is the museum of First Nations people artifacts, mostly masks. The masks are beautiful and cover a wide span of time. It had me thinking of how masks are used in so many cultures around the world, that there must be some deep cultural drivers that push people to tell stories around the fire, assuming the identities of mythological figures or to tell stories of their ancestors and daily experiences.

We have been waiting for a replacement for our broken gypsy. The new part arrived but does not fit. In the 18 or so years from when our windlass was built the manufacturer has changed some of the parts and the new gypsy will not fit on the old windlass. Many calls and photos sent later we think they have built a solution for us, which should be delivered tomorrow. FedEx lost the last package they sent, so we'll see how this goes. If it arrives and works as spec'd we'll anchor out in front of Port McNeill for a night and try it out, then be on our way north.

We've been here a week and a half, the weather has been mostly just fine if not great, so we've been able to work on various other projects. Taking advantage of the internet access to download weather apps, splicing tutorials and a couple of movies. I've started to work on splicing the cones onto our series drogue - one of my summer back burner projects. Good rainy afternoon work.

Gypsies, Grizzlies, Whales and Watermakers

June 02, 2016 by Morgan Henry

Gypsy - worn out at the center

The view from Boat Bay across Johnstone Strait to Robson Bight

Port McNeill, BC

Douglas and I are in the marina at Port McNeill, it is flat-water calm and the sun has broken through the low hanging clouds for a evening blast of sunshine into the cabin. It’s 7:45pm as I write this and the sun is going strong, we’ve been having a fair amount of light past 10pm recently. Port McNeill has been the first place we’ve tied up to a marina since leaving Port Townsend on May 5th, and it is the first place we’ve been since Nanaimo where we could walk and really stretch our legs. There is something incredibly luxurious about being tied to a solid dock after a few weeks at anchor. We have water, power, the ability to hop off any time we choose and stroll up to the grocery store for fresh lettuce and a couple of lemons from California. And it is good to stretch those legs.

The trip north has been a good ride so far, we’ve had some excellent sailing, we’ve slowed down and picked our weather and haven’t felt rushed. We’ve had a few pods of Dall’s Porpoises swim with us, we’ve seen a few Orca pods and had them surface near Tumbleweed. A grizzly bear family walked the beach near one of our anchorages and we’ve seen numerous majestic eagles. We’ve also hit a couple equipment snags and done a couple repairs that stole a few days from our schedule but we’ve tried to keep a long term perspective and how these things fit into a bigger picture.

A big decision for us was to realize that trying to rush north to jump off to Haida Gwaii and then rushing south to explore the west coast of Vancouver Island was causing us to move too quickly, and think too often of using the motor to move along instead of picking our weather and sailing. We had a permit that started June 1, good for the month, and at the rate we are traveling wouldn’tbe able to arrive at Haida Gwaii until mid-June. We motored a lot last summer and one of the topics we return to was a desire to sail more this year. With weather and equipment issues setting us back a couple weeks we’ve realized that we’d be rushing to get to Haida Gwaii and we’d rather not go to the islands in that mind frame. So we are heading around to the west coast of the Vancouver Island earlier and will take more time to explore the west coast.

As we prepared to drop anchor in the bay in front of Port McNeill Douglas noticed something amiss with our windlass. The windlass is a motorized device used to haul the anchor and anchor chain up, ours is made by Lighthouse and solidly built, heavy duty stainless steel parts and massive cast bronze “gypsy” that grabs the chain as it hauls it in. There are few moving parts and those parts are all so robust that it is hard to imagine a piece breaking with normal use. Yet the cast bronze gypsy has done just that, sheared in half at the base where the two halves connect. Further investigation has revealed that at some point the windlass was serviced or assembled without a key bearing or spring and so the bronze part has worn over the years in that area until it is now paper thin and finally snapped like a stick to the achilles tendon of a giant. We went through the many now familiar stages of equipment failure aboard a yacht - Shock (WTF - this thing is cast bronze and massive stainless plate?!) Anger (good lord, again? We just replaced the water pump at the last port. How many casks of aged rum do we need to toss overboard to Neptune?!) Denial (I’m sure there is a super rational answer to this and these parts that are now freewheeling just need a quick shot of WD40 and a whack with a hammer) Resignation (Well, I’m sure it’s going to cost a fortune and take 9 days to get the part shipped here, let’s track down some interwebs and get cracking) Deep breath, positive outlook - this happened on a windless day, a few hundred yards from a marina, not on the west coast of Vancouver Island, or a few days ago when we were solidly set with 240 feet of chain out in heavy mud. Trying really hard to get to Deep Breath area as quick as possible, and with all the practice we’re having, that’s getting easier and easier.

As much as sailing, or really cruising under sail, is about sail trim, responding to weather, route planning, and enjoying the scenery, there is a lot of dealing with equipment and gear failure. The recent failures of our windlass gypsy and the water pump are two examples. The water pump was serviced over the winter, we replaced the parts with a set of spares we had on board, that looked great, but turned out to be 10 years old, it turns out rubber parts don’t age well and after so years the parts failed quickly. The windlass gypsy is another system that from an inspection short of pulling the whole thing apart wouldn’t reveal that the discs had wornpaper thinwhere they joined the axle. It is the nature of these vessels - so many complex systems in such rough environments.

Update on the gypsy: The folks at Lighthouse, who make the windlass, have shipped out the replacement parts. Hope to have them tomorrow and be off on Saturday, or we’ll see them on Monday. They were great to deal with, small company with solid customer service. Really appreciate that when we are out here trying to figure these things out. Also discovered an excellent machine shop - if you are out this way and have needs for machining - Micron Machine up on the hill behind Port McNeill is excellent. Super friendly owner and they are set up to do pretty much anything that can be imagined in the realm of working with metals. They do a lot of work for the timber industry, including pneumatic saws that hang from helicopters to top trees, as well as about anything for the fishing industry.

We’ll wrap up a few more details around Tumbleweed today, work on provisioning and get ready for the work on the windlass.

I am also starting to post our locations through Farkwar again. They have a widget that I was able to embed on the site - you’ll see a map of our locations if you use the “Locations” tab. If you’d like more details on the locations you can go to www.farkwar.com you can sign up to follow us and have our updates sent to you as we post them. This year I’ll try to be better with a quick note on the anchorages.

Below are a few journal entries from the trip so far.

Blubber Bay, Texada Island, BC

N 49º47.617 W 124º36.913

May 19, 2016

Good day on the water - got off to a civilized start around 10am. Leaving False Bay we had winds between 10 and 15 knots. All sails up we headed west for Vancouver Island under overcast skies with rolling 3 foot swells. We had a great ride for a couple of hours and then the wind started to ease itself out of the picture. Throughout the morning the winds settled and the seas calmed until a bit over lunch we changed up the game plan and switched over to the motor. A couple of hours after that we decided that Clam Bay was too distant of a destination for the night and set our sights on a more manageable Blubber Bay at that north tip of Texada Island. It is an odd spot - we anchored here last year on our trip north - it has a gravel mine at one side of the cove and a ferry dock for a large ferry that works between here and Powell River - but the remaining areas as wooded and the shores are empty except for birds. The view is similarly split - the view up to the northwest toward Campbell river is wide open and graced with a vast expanse of the Strait of Georgia, to the west are views of the hills on Vancouver Island, in the distance to the east are snow capped peaks on the BC mainland. But immediately to the east is the town and mill of Powell river, a sprawling mess of civilization running along the strait.

This morning we had two small guests in the cockpit, little songbirds that perched on the stern arch, glancing around constantly for larger birds that wanted them for breakfast. The held their wings out and puffed their chests, drying them I'd guess. We watched them from the companionway for several minutes, waiting for them to see us and take flight, but it took Douglas going above to rustle them to flight. They left us with a few melodic chirps and split for another part of the bay.

Tomorrow we intend to up anchor early and head to Campbell River. The currents around the town and the stretch of water to the west of it - Discovery Passage - are some of the most notorious in the area. At maximum flows the currents can reach up to 16 knots, staggering considering Tumbleweed tops out somewhere under 7 knots. We were in Campbell river last year and our memories are strong with our transit into and out of the marina there - the cross current just pulling through the break water was epic, we had the bow pointed diagonally to the entry as we muscled through under full throttle against the current. Our plan is to arrive at Campbell river at slack tide tomorrow to avoid such drama, and to head up through Discovery Passage at slack tide on Saturday morning. A couple of 5am call times for the crew of Tumbleweed, but at least tomorrow we'll be in a marina which means the luxury of use-as-much-as-we-want hot water and the fleshpots of Campbell river. Or as least as much as we can stand before conking at 9pm.

The skies have cleared and the air stilled, it is a lovely evening here.

Douglas Bay, BC

N 50º28.965' W 125º44.985

May 21, 2016

The narrowest of channels that separate the waters of Queen Charlotte Strait and the waters of the Strait of Georgia act as time release vault doors between the areas around them. In these areas they are monsters of whirlpools, overflows, boat crushing volumes of water that boil most every hour of the day. The passkey through these narrow places is knowing when slack tide occurs - simple enough in this day and age. Today we hit a bonus trifecta-plus-plus of narrows - Yaculta, Gillard, Dent, Green Point, and Whirlpool rapids. We hit each one at near optimum time, lining ourselves up and watching as the waters began to subside before motoring through the waters like a couple Aladdins on a magical carpet.

Our morning didn't begin under an auspicious sign. As we pulled up anchor we were caught far short of the chain length and quickly realized that the chain had snagged on something deep underwater. Our anchorage was in a small bay used by a logging operation - they clear cut the area and haul the logs to the shore of the bay where they roll them down a ramp made from other trees, the logs are gathered together into a raft and a tug boat pulls them off to a sawmill where they are converted into toilet paper, plywood, maps of Ecuador, lumber pencils, Japanese lanterns, that sort of thing. The bay has been in use for a while and in addition to logs that float around until soaked with water until they sink to the bay's bottom, there are, I'm guessing, several Model T Fords, a tug boat, 8 refrigerators, and who knows what all strewn about the bottom. We tried powering forward, then in reverse. Not an inch of give. A few nights ago we had dinner with our friends Bob and Ann on Charisma and they told us how they dealt with having their chain snagged on coral columns in the south pacific - they maneuver over the top of the snag, drop extra chain to loosen the chain below and give them some swinging room and then slowly work in a clockwise manner around the snag and "unwind" the snag. If that didn't work, they'drun counter clockwise. We didn't need to drop extra chain but we tried working slowly, first counter clockwise, and after about 3/4 of a turn we felt a tug and then easing of the chain - we were free!

We motored out of Francis Bay with little wind but it picked up in Calm Channel, we were early for the timing through Yaculta Rapids and so hoisted our main and staysail, tacking lazily across the waters leading up to the rapids. We had a bit over an hour extra, the winds would build to 14 or so knots, then dwindle to 5, chain direction slightly, puff back up to 14. The sun was out, the waters calm, it was a beautiful morning.

Yaculta Rapids are actually three sets of rapids - Yaculta, Gillard, and Dent. Timing needs to be pretty keen for a sailboat that cruises at a little over 6 knots. The current can run several knots against (or with) and keeled boats are more susceptible to the eddies and whirls in the water, getting spun about. Of the three, Dent is the most feared section of water. There are photographs of overfalls of water three feet high, like a running wave of water that roils off into massive whirlpools. In one sequence a large fishing vessel had mistimed their transit and is seen rolling heavily side to side and swinging all around, barely making their way through. We fared much better, we rode through with the current in our favor - giving us a couple of extra knots of boat speed over ground.

After passing through the rapids we motored up through the fjords of Cordera Channel. The winds dropped away, the waters were flat and the views up the various channels we passed were amazing. In mid afternoon we dropped anchor a couple of hours at Bickley Harbor to wait for the slack tide at Green Point rapids. Our timing was good for Green Point as well and we motored through the rapids without drama. This put us in good shape to transit Whirpool Rapids and anchor for the night at Douglas Bay - a nice spot tucked away just north of the rapids. We were at Douglas Bay last year and really like this spot - good motivation for traveling into the evening. Whirlpool rapids were a bit more exciting than the previous rapids - on the north side of the passage we encountered numerous small whirlpools and eddies, and the current was strong. It was running in our favor and for a few minutes we were traveling at 10 knots speed over ground. Although we hadn't seen very many boats all day there were 5 already at anchor when we arrived. We anchored in 70 feet of water to the north of the other clustered boats.

Quinoa with basil sauce, asparagus, oyster mushrooms, boxed wine and early bed. Still night, waters calm, a large Canadian Coast guard cutter anchor further up the fjord in Forward Harbor.

Blenkinsop Bay, BC

N50º29.212 W126º00.353

May 25, 2016

Short day, motored out Douglas bay at 11am. It was still and quiet, all the other boats had left. It is a lovely anchorage, with a nice sand beach, a good place to hang out if we weren't so focused on Haida Gwaii.

Out of Forward Bay and into Sunderland Channel we started to see steady winds over 10 knots, gusting into the teens. We hoisted the main and staysail and sailed with the set up as the winds continued to rise to the high teens, gusting to 21 knots. We had some great sailing in choppy seas, wind right on the nose, tacking our way up Sunderland toward Johnstone Strait. As we reached the west end of Sunderland and could see the chop out in Johnstone we tucked a reef into the main and watched as the wind started to hold steady in the low 20's with gusts into the mid-20's. Fun sailing for a couple of hours. In the early afternoon we realized that our goal of Boat Bay was colliding with the reality of our slow progress and the forecast for stronger winds later in the afternoon/early evening.

We had picked out Blenkinsop Bay as our back up and so as we came out of Sunderland Channel we worked out way up into Blenkinsop. It is a beautiful spot with views into Johnstone strait and of the mountains on Vancouver Island as well as on mainland BC. No other boats in sight at the moment. Shallow, mud with good holding, our favorite combination for a stormy night. We have put out 240 feet of chain and are solidly set. Forecast for tonight and tomorrow is pretty windy - up into the 30's. We'll most likely hang out here tomorrow as well.

Excitement of the day was spotting a Grizzly bear and her two cubs. The momma grizzly was massive. It was so cool to see them saunter down the beach turning over rocks and looking for snacks, rolling in the tall grass, enjoying the sun. We watched through binoculars for about 30 minutes until they wandered back into the forest. We are a thousand or so feet from shore so they couldn't see orhear us and the wind was blowing away from them, so they didn't know we were watching. Unless the eagle told them.

Otherwise we were getting ready for moving north tomorrow. We get a break in the weather and are ready move on.

We have realized that trying to make it to Haida Gwaii and travel down the west coast of Vancouver island in a way that let's us enjoy those places in the way we'd like to is just too much for the time we have available. We have been looking at how long it takes to get up north to Haida Gwaii andrealizing we'd have to start motoring a lot and making long days for the next week or two to make the jump across Queen Charlotte Sound. We have sadly decided to put off going to Haida Gwaii to another time when we can enjoy it and not rush. But we are really excited to get to focus on the west coast of Vancouver island.

Our plan tomorrow is go head north toward Port McNeill. If the weather is good and we are making good time we'll head up all the way, we are also looking at Boat Bay which is across from Robson Bight, I think I wrote to you that it is famous for being a place that Orcas come up on the beach and scrape barnacles off their bellies. We anchored there last year and it is a pretty nice spot. There is a nice beach and the island has all sorts of little camp sites set up for observers who spend the summer there counting whales. A nice place to walk around and get a view across Johnstone Strait. Last year we didn't see any whales, but maybe this year!

Boat Bay, West Cracroft Island, BC

50º31.398'N -126º33.681'W

May 25, 2016

Exciting day on the water. After sitting in Blenkinsop Bay for 5 days while a wave of gales passed us by, it was nice to be on the water and under sail. We have been wanting to test our new storm sails - a trys'l and storm stays'l - that Hasse and company made for us. We prepped everything yesterday and then tested them out today, running them up, adjusting lines, taking notes on what to work on, notes on how we set everything up so that in a storm situation we'll be more efficient.

The sails are excellent, really well made, and it was nice to see them working. Still have a few things to work out before they are perfect but much better to sort this out and practice in a few knots of wind than out in a storm. After a week of gales the winds were pretty calm out in Johnstone Strait today - we didn't see much over 10 knots and mostly closer to 8. Still, it was odd that we were one of the only boats actually sailing - we saw one other boat all day that had sails up, everyone else was motoring - much like our trip through here last year.

Boat Bay is a nice anchorage, especially in calm weather. It opens up to the south and has a many miles long view down the strait. We have been watching tugs, barges, fishing boats and a cruise ship since anchoring. This site is across the strait from Robson Bight, ecological reserve, where Orcas like to run up on the beach and scrape barnacles off their bellies. Later in the summer researchers and grad students will be here in Boat Bay looking across the strait to count and track orca pods. Last year we walked around all their empty campsites left over from the previous year.

As we finished anchoring and were putting Tumbleweed to bed, a spry gent in his 60's rowed up in a gorgeous rowboat. He was rowing from Victoria to Ketchikan. The boat pretty tidy, very little gear that was visible. He mentioned that he grew up in Campbell river and was a guide in these areas at one point. The boat's name was "Rippingale" after a teacher who told them a story about how he had rowed to Alaska. Recently the man called the teacher and told him that he was so inspired by that story he told them in the 6th grad that he was now rowing to Alaska himself. The teacher laughed and told him that he had made the story up and had never actually rowed up here. Nonetheless, he’s rowing for Ketchikan and making good time. He said it took him a stunning 4 days from Victoria to Campbell River, I may have misheard him. That’s a good clip. He set up the boat so that he can rest it on the beach for sleeping, with a little tent over it, cushioned with floats. When the tide comes in he floats up and is ready to start rowing for the day.

Saw a whale spouting as we motored out of the anchorage this morning, and another whale surfacing very near the mouth of Boat Bay as we were dropping our sails. The cove is somewhat open to Johnstone Strait and I wouldn’t want to be here in a southerly, the long beautiful views down the strait would bring massive swell and fetch in a blow. But on a quiet night it is a beautiful spot, the small island that buffers the cove from the strait is densely wooded with wind gnarled trees, and large logs have been wedged into the rocks above the high water line. To the north is a nice landing beach and there are paths through the forest to the observation platforms for counting whales.

Beautiful summer days with Carl and Mary Ann Peterson, aboard their fishing vessel "Last Dance" out of Sitka, Alaska. Trolling for salmon on gentle seas, under a generous August sky.

Last Dance

May 10, 2016 by Morgan Henry

Last year we spent six weeks in Sitka, Alaska where we became friends with Carl and Mary Ann Peterson who fish for salmon on their boat "Last Dance". I spent a couple of days out on the water with them and put together a short film. Meeting them was the highlight of our time in Sitka and among the best experiences of our trip north last year. They troll for salmon all around Baranof island, based out of Sitka. Tumbleweed was docked next to Last Dance for most of our stay in Sitka and we were pretty much adopted by Carl and Mary Ann within minutes of docking.

North to Haida Gwaii

May 10, 2016 by Morgan Henry

Roche Harbor, WA

We are again on the move. We left Port Townsend on May 5th, celebrating Cinco de Mayo and a smooth crossing of the Strait of Juan de Fuca with beers and tacos in Griffin Bay, anchored off the site of what was once American Camp. A multi-cultural collision of history.

We spent the winter in Port Townsend, focused on boat projects - repairs, changes, improvements, inspections, and on, running to a list of something like 120 projects large and small. From pulling and inspecting our chainplates, installing new engine mounts, rebedding a portlight, etc. Each task taking on multiple dimensions of research, sourcing materials, prepping, executing, tinkering, finalizing. And although there are many blogs and sites devoted to the arcana of boat projects (and thank you all for doing them - I visited many of them and they were immensely helpful!) this is not one of those sites......yet. I might someday post images from our winter work but at the time was mostly focused on doing not documenting. We had so many tasks to tackle that trying to properly capture them in a way to share would have blown our schedule and we’d still be tied up at Boat Haven marina.

Among the additions one that has become instantly beloved are new sails from Carol Hasse and company. Our previous sails were original to Tumbleweed and almost 20 years old. The new sails are excellent in light air. We’ve been sailing handily in 6 or 7 knots, windspeeds that would have had the old genoa sagging in the breeze. The new sails are beautifully made and hold their shape so well. It’s a joy to hoist them in the light winds we’ve had recently and drift along.

We returned south at the end of October, moving quickly to get ahead of the bad weather that was building to the north. When we arrived in Port Townsend we learned that Douglas’ mother was ill and we flew to visit her. Sadly, her health took a turn for the worse and she passed away in November. We were grateful that we could be with her, and with Douglas’ father. It was a melancholy end to the year.

After the new year we started in on our list of tasks to get ready for our next chapter. We had originally planned to head down the west coast and head for the South Pacific, but as we researched routes and weather it became obvious that it makes more sense to leave for the South Pacific from Mexico in March. We altered plans and are going to head for Haida Gwaii, specifically Gwaii Haanas which is a collection of islands off the coast of northern British Columbia, that is set aside as a First Nations heritage site and nature conservancy. We have a permit to visit the area for the month of June and are working our way north.

For the moment we are in Roche Harbor sorting out some other paperwork. Once we have that completed we’ll be able to cross over to Canada and begin heading north.

Port Townsend, Six Months Later

October 28, 2015 by Morgan Henry

Port Townsend, WA

Douglas and I are back in Port Townsend after six months of traveling north through the inside passage. We made our way through the waters of the Strait of Georgia, Queen Charlotte Strait, Fitz Hugh Sound, Chatham Strait, Peril Strait, and others with names we had contemplating and trying to imagine the past year. Spending weeks in isolated anchorages and sailing through waters without another boat in sight. We visited small communities in British Columbia and southeast Alaska, spending six weeks in Sitka, ultimately our favorite town of the trip. The wildlife was a strong and emotionally stirring presence, daily we observed some form of wonder; breaching whales in Chatham Strait, Dall’s Porpoises racing across the bow, eagles on the hunt, flocks of geese making their way south in large V shaped flocks, massive smacks of jellyfish. We sailed through all types of weather, calm days where our sails hung loosely, the waters flat and undulating like oil, and days where the seas were whipped up and the winds were blowing steadily in the high 20s, gusting higher. We motored more than we wanted, and I nursed a running a grudge against tidal currents that ran through narrow channels, often with no wind. On our way south we felt driven to make the most of all good weather days, pushing on under sail or motor, aiming to get miles behind us.

Mostly I felt humbled each day on the water. Those days gave me plenty of time for thought and reflection. The scale of the environment we passed through and the abundance of wildlife were awe inspiring and something I enjoyed thoroughly. The further north we traveled the less we saw signs of society. The clear cutting and fish farms that were so present along the southern BC coastline gave way as we rounded Cape Caution and pretty much disappeared once we crossed into Alaska. Each night that we anchored in a new cove we would be entertained by eagles, gulls, seals, sea otters further north.

We left Sitka about five weeks ago, pushing to get past Cape Caution before bad weather locked up the area to the north of Vancouver Island. Once around the cape there was the business of getting through Johnstone Strait, another notorious body of water, along the east side of the island. (I read last night that a boat with four aboard flipped in the narrows, I don’t know the circumstances, but when the currents run there they can create ship destroying whirlpools and large flows of standing waves). To travel south along the east side and in protected waters, of Vancouver Island, we had to pass that relatively narrow slot where storm strength winds begin this time of year to work against the currents to produce truly ugly water. But we played our our timing well, making it through both bodies of water, getting in some excellent sailing along the way. The window is closing, since we passed through the gales have been building and running for days at a time up north. We met a couple that was caught north of Cape Caution a couple of days after we had rounded and they told us of sitting through 65 knots gusts while tied to the dock in Shearwater.

Daylight started to work against us as well. For months we had enjoyed long days with dawn starting to glow at 4:30 in the morning and sunset lingering to 10pm, giving us opportunities for extending our days. When we needed to continue on to a distant anchorage or if we needed to be on the water early to meet slack water at a specific place we had plenty of light to work by. Over the past few weeks the days started to clip themselves shorter at either end, the sun showing up later each morning and leaving us each evening as we sorted out anchoring.

We have a map taped up to the bulkhead that separates the salon from the v-berth that covers the inside passage. It begins with Port Townsend just visible above the green painter’s tape we used to secure it, and covers the area northward, including Vancouver Island and the British Columbia coast to Aristazabal Island. That is the “southern portion” of the two maps we used to get an overall view of the area we traveled through. There is another map that we used for the northern section. Each night when we arrived at a new anchorage I’d place an X on the location and write the date. On just this map I’ve just counted 38 spots where we either anchored or tied up to a dock over the past 6 months, there are another 31 spots on the northern section. Each of those slightly scrawled dates represent a mini adventure in anchoring or the happy conclusion to a day on the water.

Being back in Port Townsend feels good. There are many people on the dock who spent the winter here last year and are returning for another season. It has been nice to catch up. There is something nice about the familiarity of a place after being on the move for a few months. It also is taking a bit of adjusting, after being in so many isolated places and having a free form to our lives.

A nice surprise was to see an old friend from Portland who has just started taking courses at the NW School of Wooden Boat building. I hadn’t seen him for 15 years. And now he is docked two boats over, doing classes during the week and then returning to Portland on the weekends to see his family. What a crazy, small world….

I think I have a good amount of “processing” time ahead but wanted to post a note to put a punctuation on this portion of the trip. My thoughts at the moment are that there is a lifetime of exploration along the waters north of Cape Caution, we peeked at a small amount and look forward to spending more time in the region. I would head north more quickly in the future, and make our way around Cape Caution and into the northern BC and SE Alaskan waters as soon as possible. I would also like to spend a trip north focused on Haida Gwaii island. And as sailors our next trip would involve more “outside” passage than inside. We had planned on sailing along the outside on our return but repair work in Sitka changed those plans. It is a wonderful part of the world and I hope we are all able to preserve it as long as possible.

For the moment we have a list of projects to tackle on Tumbleweed and are starting our research for heading to the south Pacific in the spring. The trip north was meant to be a “shake down” cruise, to put our systems through the paces, find out what worked, what could be addressed differently. We learned an incredible amount. A boat like this is a complex set of interconnected systems. Running them for six months mostly on the move has stressed them and shown us what works well and what we can improve. And reordered our priorities, giving us a better understanding of what we’ll need to do over the winter to prepare for a trip south. We can enthusiastically endorse the Valiant as a great cruising yacht, Tumbleweed was a pure joy to sail even in the most challenging conditions.

I’m working on a list of resources we used for the trip, and notes on what worked well, what we’d like to improve, and will post as I get those thoughts organize.

Ketchikan Revisited

September 20, 2015 by Morgan Henry

Ketchikan, AK

Two weeks ago we set out from Sitka on what was intended to be our focused effort to head south. Our first day we got a late start after topping off our fuel and provisions, and motored only a couple hours north of town to a cove in Krestof Sound. After six weeks of life in “town”, trying to find the source of some troubling vibration and rattling sounds from our drive train, and the last few days of getting ready, the weather opened up and we decided to take a down day, hang out and prepare ourselves for a multi-week push south. It was a beautiful anchorage and the weather held, we saw only a couple small boats in an area that before had been heavily trafficked with sport boats and small ferries running up into Peril Strait.

Over the next week we picked up the pace and with the exception of a day that kept us traveling only a few miles due to heavy winds and seas, we made pretty good progress. For much of the following week we had calm seas and very light winds. We put the sails up when we could and motored for the rest. Making a couple of long runs that took us from Peril Strait across Chatham Strait into Herring Bay in one day, from there we went through Frederick Sound into Petersburg in another long day, on through Wrangell Narrows with the tide, and then another solid day running down Clarence Strait to a snug cove on the east coast of Prince of Wales Island.

Each day we had so many “only in Alaska” moments, the sublime beauty of waking in a fog bank at Herring Bay and motoring out into Frederick Sound in still air, the water undulating like something thick, viscous. Whales around us and off into the distance, surfacing, spouting, diving. Grizzly sightings on shore, birds skimming through the fog and calling out to each other, the mountains of Baranof Island in the distance, raw, chiseled, bearing glaciers on their shoulders. We had hit a groove and were feeling good about our object, getting around Cape Caution and to the relative protection of Vancouver island.

On the 15th we set out early from Ratz Harbor. The night before we had been welcomed to the anchorage by a small group of Dall’s Porpoises and a large pod of Orcas, they had jumped and twisted, surfacing and diving, two adults raced past with a small baby nestled between them, moving quickly to catch up to the other 9 or so members of the pod heading north. In the morning we passed a small group of Dall’s porpoises but no sight of the Orcas. Weather was clear and we had steady winds from the south. We hoisted our sails and spent much of the rest of the day sailing down Clarence Strait making way toward Ketchikan or an anchorage nearby. By mid-afternoon the wind had been on our bow the entire day and we were making slow progress, long tacks across the strait, although fun sailing and beautiful, we needed to make a switch to motor to make a safe anchorage for the night.

The winds were kicking up a pretty healthy chop in the strait by late afternoon, large swell rolling up from Dixon Entrance hitting the ebbing current left us slogging through messy seas. Off the southern coast of Cleveland Peninsula we wrapped something in our propeller. The seas were large at that point, driving kelp, line, nets, scraps of wood under the surface. When we have hit kelp before there is usually a moment of thrashing around from the propeller and then a cloud of green chunks floats up around the stern. This time there was only a prolonged rumble and sound of something rhythmically hitting the hull every few moments. We dropped our revs down, idled, looked around for line, couldn’t see anything in the water. Over the next few minutes we went through our routine of running in reverse, then into forward, hoping to cut through or dislodge whatever had fouled our prop. After a bit we continued on but soon it was clear that whatever balance we had found after our six weeks of work on the drive train in Sitka had been lost. After a week of the engine and drive train running quietly and strong, we were back to heavy vibrations and unpleasant sounds from the drive train. We could motor at only a couple of knots before the sounds became horrible so we went back to sailing and sailed across the mouth of Behm Canal toward Tongass Narrows, the channel of water that would bring us to Ketchikan.

Once we had rounded Caamano Point and made our way into Behm Canal the chop from Clarence Strait diminished greatly and we had a shift in the wind to make a clean run to the narrows. We reached Tongass Narrows as the sun set, it was beautiful, the winds dropped a bit and in the protection of the Gravina Island we sailed along gently. As the light faded we switched again to motor to navigate the narrows, the sound of drive train was rough and it was clear something was out of alignment. We could only motor at 2 knots before the vibrations and grating sounds were too much, but we could hold a steady speed and make progress. We alerted the Coast Guard of our situation, and they called around for a towing service for us (the local tow operator had just left for the season), a passing commercial fishing boat offered us a tow. Although moving slowly we were able to navigate, and if we needed to could go to higher speeds it was just noisy. It was dark on the water of the narrows but it is well marked with aids to navigation and well charted, there is a lot of commercial traffic there. It was an exciting few hours for sure, commercial vessels are well lit and communicated with us as they passed for the most part, others we picked up on radar as they approached. At times a vessel would hide among the lights on shore and then pop up near us. But we kept a good look out with binoculars, radar and AIS.

We entered Tongass narrows around 7pm and pulled up to the marina at 11:30pm. The harbormaster gave us an open,easy to pull into slip. Pulling up to the marina breakwater we realized that both the paper and electronic charts, both supposedly up to date, had the orientation of the breakwater flipped, with the opening on the wrong side. It is not clearly marked and I think in poor weather or if someone at the helm isn’t paying attention, it could be a rough landing. We saw the problem and swung around to the correct side. As we pulled up to the slip we had a last surprise, the current in the narrows runs strongly and as we rounded the breakwater it caught ahold of us and gave us a rude push against the dock. Tied up, engine off, we were in that moment of post- adrenaline rush, happy to have made it to the dock, glad to be off the water, when some of the crew of the fishing vessel that had offered us a tow came down the dock, they wanted to be sure we had arrived safely and check in on us. Midnight, strangers passed for only a few moments, and yet they had come out to see how we were. There is a lot to love about Alaska.

Since then we’ve had a diver inspect the propeller and take some video for us. There are signs of missing paint and scratch lines on our shaft, consistent with wrapping something. We are pretty sure that the engine is out of alignment and our focus over the next few days will be to realign the engine and then begin heading south again.

Halibut Point, Sitka, Alaska

August 23, 2015 by Morgan Henry

We are hauled out, on the hard, up on boat stands with our keel settled on a line of cross set wood blocks and the hull propped with two rows of steel jacks. It is a weird, unnatural feeling to be on a boat, 10 feet in the air, the natural rhythm and sway we are so used to gone, making us sometimes stumble for our balance as we move through the cabin. Our neighbors are a large, steel fishing vessel in the throes of foreclosure, and a wooden fishing boat having her bottom paint redone.

Halibut Point boatyard is a mix of boat yard, storage for shipping containers and home to the only deep water dock in Sitka for cruise ships. Although several miles out of town, with no services in the area, some 30 cruise ships docked here this year. When there are no cruise ships the yard is dead except for the occasional fork lift maneuvering a shipping container, or the hum of compressors on a handful of refrigerated containers. The yard is self service, they haul you out, get you on stands and then fade away. The crew here is friendly, helpful if you need something and the facility is pretty well ordered with a large new building to handling tours for folks coming off the ships, but this isn’t a typical boat yard with rows of boats wrapped in plastic with the hum of activity. In the spring this yard is supposed to be hopping with fishermen getting their boats ready for a new year. With fishing season in full swing, the fleet is out on the water.

We’ve been in Sitka a month now. We arrived with our nephew Sawyer and plans to see him to the airport and then head south along the west coast of Baranof and Prince of Wales Island. Meandering the outside passage through August, heading for Port Townsend. We had some troubling grinding sounds and heavy vibrations coming from somewhere in the drive train and needed to resolve that before heading out but thought it would be a few days of tinkering and repairs. We’ve since gone through having a diver do an inspection of the shaft and propeller, working with a local mechanic who suggested we pull the transmission for inspection - which we did, an epic undertaking- lots of research, phone calls with the kind and patient folks at CSR in Seattle who we’ve worked with over the past couple of years, until finally all that was left was hauling out the boat for a closer inspection of the propeller and shaft. Once out of the water it was apparent the problem was the propeller. We have a Maxprop, a feathering propeller that works on an elegant set of gears to “feather” the blades to reduce drag when under sail. The blades and the coupler to the prop shaft were all loose and easily wiggled. After a long and enlightening conversation with the owner of Maxprop it was pretty clear that all the problems we have been having were in line with his experience of similarly worn propellers. So off went the propeller for servicing. We shipped it out on Thursday and hope to have it back sometime in the coming week.

Arriving in Sitka, with our plans for heading south, we had an eye on the calendar. Moving out of August into September the weather shifts toward more rain, heavier winds, and longer storms. We had hoped to be further south by this point to get ahead of unpleasant weather and there has been some anxiety around not keeping to our plans. But we’ve made an unintended trade, we’ve really enjoyed out time in Sitka. It’s a pleasant town and the people have been wonderful. In particular our neighbors at Thompson marina.

We were docked next to a couple who live on a salmon troller and fish the waters around Southeast Alaska. Carl grew up in Sitka and spent his career in northern Alaska as a school administrator before coming back to fish in “semi-retirement”, Mary Ann is a “semi-retired” former ER nurse. From the beginning of our time in the marina there was a constant stream of visitors to their boat, I joked that we docked next to the mayor, and realized later that was probably closer to the truth than I thought. Over the few weeks we were neighbors they adopted us, sharing fish, baked treats, stories, advice and sympathy for our project.

I spent two days on the water with them, shooting video while they fished. The rains let up and for two days we had perfect summer conditions. Calm seas, open blue skies, lazy puffs of clouds. We’d drift along at one and a half knots, drogues out to keep us slow. Carl would set out the hooks for trolling while Mary Ann took the helm, then back to the cabin for a couple of hours to let the gear “soak”, listening to the banter of the other fishermen, enjoying Mary Ann’s cooking - blueberry muffins one day, chocolate cake another (who can make a light, decadent chocolate cake, while at sea, fishing? Effortlessly?). Once the lines were vibrating from caught salmon he’d bring up the gear with the help of a winch, put the salmon on ice, and then reset for another round.

The waters to the west of Sitka were packed with trollers, seiners and gill netters. All waltzing around each other at one and a half knots. It was mesmerizing, boats drifting slowly past, giving a wave or a shout if they knew one another. The VHF radio had the occasional squabble over one boat coming too close to another or crowding them into shallow waters. Carl and Mary Ann kept an eye on the commotion and boats around them, smiling at the bad language and behavior over the radio.

Many of the people out fishing were single handed. A fisherman would set a course with the auto pilot, stroll to the stern of the boat and set out gear, giving the occasional glance around, then head back up to pilot the boat. Not much room for error, and I’m guessing some of the tempers flaring were due to boats wandering. Many of these folks have been doing this work for decades, and make it look easy, but I can’t imagine it’s a field for the faint of heart or inexperienced. One boat holding its course too long could force another boat into a shallow area, dragging their gear and wrecking havoc with their equipment.

But Carl and Mary Ann bring a great deal of joy to fishing, living on the sea, enjoying each other’s company and that of their friends. People stopped by at the dock to share coffee, catch up on the news, discuss fish politics, discuss where the fishing might be best. They offered us the use of their truck. Told us about life in Sitka, and made us feel welcomed and part of the community. There has been a running joke that we won’t get our repairs sorted out in time and will spend the winter here. Carl sees it as a foregone conclusion, and that if we play our cards right we’ll end up with Alaskan citizenship and be able to share in the state tax distribution. I can’t imagine two better ambassadors for the state.

With these experiences, it’s been hard to look at our problems with our propeller as a complete negative. If we had just dropped Sawyer off at the airport and headed south we would have missed out on meeting Carl and Mary Ann, and getting to know Sitka. We would have missed the experience of pulling the transmission and going over the entire drive train and getting a better education on our engine. Better to experience as part of a shake down cruise here in Alaska and not somewhere in the South Pacific.

Humpback Whales, Frederick Sound, Alaska

Sitka, Alaska

July 30, 2015 by Morgan Henry

Sitka, Baranof Island

Heading south! We have reached the northern most point of our trip this season. Over the last couple of weeks we have sailed from Petersburg to Sitka, through Frederick Sound, across Chatham Strait and north along the eastern coast of Baranof Island, through Peril Strait (where we had our northern-most anchorage in Deep Bay) and finally through the small cluster of islands and islets just north of Sitka inside Kruzof Island.

Our nephew Sawyer joined us in Petersburg and his addition to the crew amped up the adventure. It was also impeccable timed, the beauty of nature between these ports of call has been at the top of the list of what we have experienced on the trip so far. The Humpback whales that went beyond counting in Chatham Strait and as we moved along the east coast of Baranof island, at any moment we could see spouting, or tail slapping or a great tail tipping up into the air - hanging for a moment and then slipping ever so elegantly into the sea. We spent several days in their company, often they were far from us though their massive percussive tail slaps would carry across the water like distant canon fire. We had a couple surface near us, one that came up fairly close to the boat and began to methodically pound his long flipper on the water's surface.

The sailing itself was spotty, as it has been for most of the trip, with the exception of our crossing of Chatham Strait which was the the stand out day of sailing of the trip to day. A steady 28 knots and a healthy swell working up from the Gulf of Alaska made for a fast and exciting crossing. Other days we might get the sails up for a few hours before the winds disappeared.

Our first night out of Petersburg we anchored in Thomas Bay with views of glaciers and some impressive peaks. Only a few miles from town and that part of Alaska begins to feel remote. Baird and Patterson Glaciers are pretty large and when the mist parted for a glimpse of Patterson it was an impressive sight - a large face, hundreds of feet high, covering the side of a mountain.

Red Bluff Bay was the favorite anchorage. After a wild ride across Chatham Strait, and with the winds still blowing in the high-20's we motored into the narrow, winding passage at the bay's mouth and in moments the winds dropped to a couple knots, the waters stilled and the world calmed. Red Bluff Bay is a lengthy, winding passage through high cliffs with impressive waterfalls, over 20 from the mouth to the head of the waters. The moment we came into the entrance we felt we were crossing over into a forgotten spot slipped out of time, there were comments about Jurassic Park with all the waterfalls, lush greenery and little islets. The anchorage had views of a massive waterfall cascading from a lake hidden from view, and when the mists when clear we could see snowy peaks and an impressive granite spire.

At Red Bluff Sawyer had what will in the years to come be taken as a tall tale of fishing, and I'm sure he'll have to defend the story. It is sad that fishermen through the ages have embellished their accomplishments to such an extent that when one really does have a true story of "the one that got away" it will only be met with arched eyebrows and skepticism. Let me set the story down now so that skeptics can park their eye rolling and appreciate for a moment the beauty of the salmon lost. On his first cast (really!) Sawyer gave a slight tug of his line and looked over the water as though something not quite right was going on, before telling us that he maybe had a fish on. There was a moment of suspended belief when none of us really thought he'd hooked a fish, then the tip of the rod arched downward with a great jerk and we all shouted out, and set to work gathering up the net, running to life lines, and yelling encouragement. The salmon made a break for it - running deep and hard away from the boat, Sawyer had to work his way around the shrouds, stern arch and across the cockpit, as the salmon made the occasional mad dash and then dove deeply only to be reeled in ever so slowly. After a good deal of this the salmon surfaced and floated, exhausted. I leaned over with the net and it made a short run for it, tricking us into believing it was tuckered out. I went for another grab with the net, this time the salmon went head first into the net, it felt like I'd swooped up a large dog, the net seemed far too small for the fish, as I went to scoop it up it thrashed around, left the hook in the net, backflipped itself out of the mess and disappeared. In short - skillful rod work brought the salmon in, a net too small for such a beast let it slip away.

Fishing went downhill from there but we did have some great kayaking!

Our next anchorage along the coast of Baranof Island was Warm Springs, a small community of houses tucked up along the edge of a rain forest. The houses and boardwalk are all wood deck on supports, the ground is so damp and constantly shifting. We followed a boardwalk up into the forest behind town to a hot spring pool beside a waterfall and spent a couple of hours soaking in the pool and taking in the beauty of nature. There were a couple of small rock pools built around large boulders that cascaded into a stretch of white water at the head of the waterfall that drops into the bay. We anchored for the night in a small cove in the bay, hidden from the view of the community. There we were entertained by a baby seal and kayaked over a school of salmon, who had zero interest in our fishing lures.

Over the next few days we motored north in very light winds through Peril Strait, which we caught on a calm day. We saw Dall's porpoises in the strait and a few more Humpback whales. We were up early to catch the slack tide to run through Sergius Narrows, a beautiful, raw passage that at the ebb gave us a 4 knot boost. Currents there can run to 9 knots off ebb, frightening. But we had a swift, lovely passage and made for an anchorage off the east side of Kurzof Island, a nice spot with a wide shallows to one side and a cluster of small islets to the other. I kayaked over the shallows and noticed that they swiftly went from 20 feet or so to a few inches. Later that day when a Nauticat sailboat came into the anchorage I saw it making for the shallows and hailed the skipper on channel 16 - he responded with: "Yeah, I think I know what you're calling me about. I can confirm it shallows here" and was stuck. The tide was pretty much out, but over the next hour his boat listed over heavily and was a sad sight. He took his anchor out by dinghy and came over to say that it was no big deal, he was going to go fishing until the tide came in. He wasn't bothered a bit and soon was floating again.

All too soon we were motoring into Sitka, where we spent a couple of days sightseeing with Sawyer, enjoying the luxuries of unlimited water, fresh veggies and a great food truck. We were sad to put him on the plane home, we had a great time and it was a different adventure for us to have someone to share the trip with. Poetry nights and fair weather late night dinners were the highlights for me. The timing worked out so well, we saw more wildlife and had some of the best anchorages of the trip.

We are in Sitka for a few more days. We have had ongoing issues with what we thought was the prop but now think might be with the transmission. We had a diver do an inspection and he gave the prop a clean bill of health, we sent recordings of the sounds we were having with the engine to CSR in Seattle and they are leaning toward transmission problems. We will be heading south along the outside passage and want to be sure the problem is cleared up before we do. Sitka is a great town and there are excellent boat facilities, hopefully this goes quickly and isn't too painful.

Douglas checking out the neighborhood. Every 1/2 day the neighbors change - this ship was soon swapped for one twice as large.

Ketchikan AK

June 19, 2015 by Morgan Henry

Ketchikan, Alaska After a month of wandering the BC coast, with a short stop in Shearwater for supplies, it feels a bit unreal to be docked in downtown Ketchikan. We have a slip right in the center of the action, our neighbor is a massive Norwegian Cruise ship, it pulled in this morning around 6:30 and will most likely move south in a couple of hours. Last night there was a Holland American liner in its place until sunset.

Yesterday morning we were in Foggy Bay, a stopping point on the way from the Canadian border to Ketchikan, a serene cove surrounded by forest with a notch that gave us a view out into Revillagigedo Sound. The route from the cove was shallow at low tide when we left and we motored slowly in almost no wind, winding around to the mouth of the inlet to the cove. As we left the inner cove two deer swam across our path, coming to the mainland from their night’s retreat on a little islet.

It was perfectly calm as we motored north from Foggy Bay to Ketchikan. we had some weird vibrations with our prop and kept our speed down. We came into sight of Ketchikan shortly after lunch. Quite the change from the serenity of the past month. There was a long line of cruising boats making their way to the city - it is the major port of entry for all boats heading north into the US. Long liners and sport fishermen with charter crews were out in force, the long liners had their rigs down and fishing along the shoreline, charter fishermen were running their clients out at full speed, other boats were idling along fishing along the shore as well. Two cruise ships headed our way as we came into Tongass Narrows, which is as named, narrow. We idled along as they passed by closely, a sudden wall of windows and people watching, taking photos.

Pulling into Ketchikan we were given our dock assignment in the city dock, right in the heart of the action. We went along to the stern of a Holland American cruise ship and found the narrow slot into the small marina. I circled at the mouth of the marina a couple times while Douglas finalized our shore ties, during which time four float planes landed within feet of us, two landed at either side in tandem at one point. It was all a bit nerve wracking like we’d been pulled into some circus act.

From the calm morning of two deer swimming across the channel to the whirlpool of Ketchikan.

It feels good to to be in Alaska. We came through this way 12 years ago and talked about coming back this way at some point, bringing kayaks and taking a ferry to various towns and exploring from there. Coming back in our own boat wasn’t even remotely on our minds. Alaska has been a place we have been aiming for the past couple of months, we’re not sure how far north we’ll travel, Glacier Bay is a remote point in our minds, there is so much to see and explore just between here and Juneau.

We’ll spend the next couple of days here, sorting out the issues with the prop, taking on provisions, enjoying the circus.